<prompt> Human: Last December I got a new job that had a 90 day waiting period for any benefits. I ended up getting getting short term health insurance with a 7.5k deductible until the end of March. Well, a week before my real insurance kicked in I ended up feeling sick, fainting, and breaking my nose on the fall down. I went to the hospital and waited for over 6 hours to be told, You should really see a doctor. They also did an EKG and took my vitals, but thats pretty much it. I learned my lesson - next time Im avoiding a hospital unless Im actually dying.Anyway, Ive gotten two bills so far. One from the hospital for about 1,850 that was knocked down to 650 after a littleno insurance discount. I got another from the physician for 1,200 where they offered 20 for paying within 30 days.When looking up the coded items on the physicians bill, I see the ER visit was coded as a 99285. Looking this up, I see this is the most severe ER code. I found this article mentioning the misuse of the code, and this from a United Healthcare document:To use CPT code 99285 for billing, the presenting problems during an emergency room visit are expected to include the following: medical conditions that are of high severity, are potentially life threatening, and require the immediate attention of a physician.From what Ive read, it seems I shouldnt have been billed at this code. Ive asked the billing office to reconsider, but they came back saying they agree with the code. What should be my next step? Ive thought of a few options: Try and get my short term insurance to deal with it. Since Im not going to hit the 7,500 deductible, it doesnt seem like they would work very hard to get my bill down. Email the billing office explaining why I think Im being over-billed and ask bluff for the address to their legal office to give to my attorney. File a complaint with Office of Inspector GeneralJCAHOState AGCenter for Medicare and MadicaidDepartment of Health and Hospitals and wait and see if anything happens. Just pay the bill and get the 20 discount Or try and haggle for a bigger discount.  <response>: This thread has a high potential to become politically charged. Please be aware that off-topic andor political comments are not welcome here. Violation of this rule will result in your comments being deleted and a potential ban at the moderation teams discretion. Please report comments that are not relevant or helpful to the OP. 