<prompt> Human: A few months ago, my wife had to go to the dentist to get some work done. Our regular dentist recommended a specialist. She asks if they take our insurance, and they ask for her card, make copies, etc, make it all seem legit. She pays her co pay, has the work done, then a month later, we get a bill. We call up our insurance, they say these guys are out of network amp;amp; theyre not covering it. It has since been sent to collections. I feel like they knew they didnt take our insurance and theyre taking advantage of us. We live in California, if that helps. What are our options at this point?Edit: Ok, well pay the bill with a lesson learned. Edit 2: Thank you everyone for your helpful advice. Assistant: What are our options at this point?Youll have to pay whats owed. That the specialist made copies of your insurance card means they likely tried to submit the bill to the insurance company, but the insurance company denied any charge due to being out of network. This isnt the specialists fault or problem.This question comes up a lot. The bottom line is that its the consumers responsibility to find out if services by a particular doctor, dentist, specialist, or whatever is covered by your insurance.Human: Shouldnt they know what insurance they accept?Edit: Why wouldnt they let us know before the work was done?Assistant: Not necessarily. There are very many insurance companies in the United States. Medical providers dont have an incentive to care too much about whether insurance will pay for part or all of a particular procedure, because they get paid either way.Human: They made it seem like it was covered they accepted our insurance. Thats the part thats pissing me off.  <response>: There can be different plans that are all offered by the same company. Some plans offered by your company cover XYZ and dont have a network. So your dentist was saying yes we deal with that insurance company. Its up to YOU to know your explanation of benefits and whats covered. Its not up to the dentist to know hundreds of insurance plans and which have networks and which cover 10, 30, 50 etc to tell you exactly what the final bill will be. 