Help us pay this outragous medical bill

Last year, my wife and I went into Alta View Hospital (as recommended by her doctor at the time) for a tubal litigation procedure. Her biological parents had a large amount of mental and substance abuse problems which included paranoid schizophrenia. At the recommendation of my wife's adopted parents we all agreed that a tubal litigation was a good idea to prevent having biological children. (Neither of us wanted kids to begin with so that was fine.)

Prior to having the procedure we called the hospital's billing department and were assured that her insurance would cover the cost completely. Looking back, we can now see that since that point we were rushed into the hospital for the procedure rather quickly. (The call was on 10/2/2020 and the procedure was done on 10/5/2020. I don't remember what date we made the appointment but I remember my family commenting that it felt like a rushed timeline.)

4 months later, we recieve a bill (shown below) telling us that we owe $8,003.63 and that our insurance had not covered any of it. Naturally we went after the insurance company first who told us they actually do cover it, but the code the bill was under was put in incorrectly by the hospital. With an insurance agent on the line with me, we called over to Intermountain's billing and financial aid department where they said they could change the code. We ended up speaking with a "team lead" who's name was Vicky (not 100% on the name but I think that was it) who told us she would re-submit it to the coding team and get it sent back to the insurance for processing. This is a process that took months by the way, and during that time my wife had called them so much and gotten the run around enough times to cause her to break into tears and induce a high level of stress from her at the simple mention of the issue.

A few days later I got a callback from Vicky, wasn't able to answer it, called back and got a regular agent, who told me the coding change was complete and had been sent back over to the insurance but that it could take up to a year to complete. I believed them, so it was a shock when about a month or two later we got a notice that we were sent to collections on this bill that was supposed to be with the insurance company again. I called both the collection agency and the hospital ASAP and was ultimately told that no coding change had taken place and it was never submitted back to the insurance. The team that was supposed to change the code had basically just said "no, we aren't going to help you." and closed it out. Again, we were told by the hospital representative that it had been done, but that was only one of the many lies they have told us.

During this whole process we were also working on applying for financial aid, as the $4,000 the insurance company told us they would cover was still out of our price range. We had sent in all but one of the documents needed and I was under the understanding they were going to try and process it without the last one (which was a W2 form or tax return from the IRS which we didn't have as my wife had not been employed for a few years.) however this was short lived as, even though they didn't change or re-submit anything to the insurance, that simple inquiry into changing the code completely nullified any work we did on financial aid documents.

At this point we had to go about procuring new documents and obtaining a letter of non filing from the IRS. After sending in these highly sensitive documents the financial aid department dragged their feet on giving us a verdict and we were forced to put the bill on a payment plan before it went to collections again. We made it very clear to the agent who set up the plan that about $50 a month was the max we could aford with our tight budget. Neither of us are employed, due to covid, at this time. Despite that, she essentially bullied us into a $150 a month payment plan for 5 years, with interest, which is more than we can currently afford. She kept saying that financial aid would take a big chunk out of things and we wouldn't have to worry about it though.

Yet here we are, because as it turns out the financial aid department refused our request all together. Not because our financial situation didn't qualify, but because the procedure wasn't eligible. This would have been incredibly valuable information to have gotten 8 months ago. The agents I could talk to said they simply don't know what is accepted and what isn't, which is ridiculous if you ask me.

After waiting on the phone for over an hour and a half that day alone, I spoke with a supervisor who said he would credit us 25% (which comes out to about $2,000 and still out of our price range but slightly better) however as of today he has yet to adjust the bill at all. He claims technical issues but everyone I've talked to says it's the classic runaround and I completely agree. I have no trust left due to lie after lie and I'm doubtful it will ever happen. Even if it does, it does not change the fact we cannot afford it.

Making matters worse, during this time my father became very ill and sadly passed away in the ICU on 9/16/2021

We have since found several credit cards he hid from us, all with an alarming amount of debt on them. He had no life insurance, and we will now be loosing his social security income. We were struggling to make ends meet before this, but now more than ever it falls upon me and my wife to help support my mother. We've been living with them and paying rent, but with the estemated $30,000 in debt that just got dropped on us that rent will be raised quite a bit and make even the $50 we could afford previously utterly impossible.

We are not the kind of people to beg for money, I've done everything in my power to pick up extra cash, but even after working myself into the ground I haven't been able to put a dent in this. Please, if you are able to spare us any money to at least get this ridiculous medical bill paid then I can help out my recently widowed mother with finances. We hate to ask for money, but we simply can't see any other option.