<prompt> Human: In 2016 my mom had knee surgery and we talked to our insurance company BCBS and they basically said your costs are going to equal the max out of pocket, since we had a gold plan it was 6,000 and some change. We paid that, she had her surgery and it was all good. Well fast forward to last month we get a bill from the hospital saying we still have 3,400 outstanding and its now going to collections. I called the hospital, and they said they already billed insurance and they paid their portion and now this is whats left.Am I wrong in that a maximum out of pocket expense equals maximum out of pocket? How do I make this work, as were not in the financial position to pay this bill?  <response>: BCBS did a shit job with our billing for our last childs delivery. Also on the gold plan, 6k max out of pocket. EOB showed us owing 12k of the 18k bill to the in-network hospital and 2k to anesthesiologist. 6 weeks of almost daily arguing with them and our final bill was 3k to hospital and 2k to anesthesiologist. Advocate for yourself. 