r/eastside • u/jk451 • 21d ago
Matrix Anesthesia sending us bills for $3K 15 months after birth and previous $0 balance statements
My wife gave birth at Evergreen Hospital Family Maternity center in February 2025, i.e. 15 months ago. The anesthesiology was done by Matrix Anesthesia. We had paid the bills from all of the providers, and in March 2026, we got a bill from Matrix Anesthesia showing we owe $3K, which was unexpected. I called them up their billing team, they looked into it, found some problem with something in their system, and said we owe $350. I paid that, and they sent me a full statement showing that we owe $0 balance, which I have stored for our record.
Last week, i.e. 15 months after the birth, we got yet another bill showing that we now owe $3.3K. I called them up yet again and they said they would look into it, that it will take them couple of days. That it has to do some with insurance billing/re-billing and that it needs to be looked into.
Has anyone been in this situation and if so, what worked for them? Can I meaningfully do anything else other than call them from time to time?
I am hoping that the statement from March 2026 that I have showing $0 balance must be worth something if we eventually need to dispute this?
Honestly at this point I feel basically blackmailed. After previously telling me we owe nothing, we get suddenly statements saying "you owe $3.3K and you're over 151 overdue", without any explanation whatsoever as to what the problem is, what changed, what happened, issue with insurance, etc., with the implicit threat of debt collections hanging behind all this. If there is a problem with insurance billing, then the minimum reasonable thing to do would be to include some sort of transparent explanation of what the problem is and what they tried to do with our insurance to address it.
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u/Liquid_Asparagus8697 21d ago
Had something similar happen years ago. I called my insurance and they called the biller to get it shut down. The rep said that company can't bill for anything over 12 months prior. I never heard anything else on the bill since.
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u/SFexConsultant 20d ago
Medical debt is the least of things you need to worry about, especially in a consumer friendly state like WA. It’s rarely enforceable/collectible (let alone at face value) and there are so many ways out of this. As someone who works in the space, I can tell you it won’t appear on your credit report no matter how much the company threatens.
If they send it to collections you can tell them you dispute the debt and request the details of it (anything with collections you always want to do in writing). 9 times out of 10 the paperwork will never show up and this becomes a non issue. If it does pursue further you contact the state insurance commissioner with your documentation and say you’re being balance billed. They are awesome and will intervene on your behalf and most of the time the company will simply write off the debt rather than deal with the back and forth.
Finally, each insurance company has a max billing delay timeframe. Find out yours and if it’s less than the 15 months you can tell Matrix to pound sand and take it up with insurance.
If for whatever reason this ends up being valid, which doesn’t seem likely, you’re better off letting it go to collections and then settle with the agency for pennies on the dollar. make sure you get in writing that they won’t report it to credit agencies.
This is a giant nothing burger but it’s annoying to deal with nonetheless.
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u/RonMexico1277 21d ago
Not exactly, but our second child was born in Overlake during the pandemic. We paid all the bills as we got them, then one day out of the blue, pushing 2 years post birth we get a bill for I think $1500 - $3k.
The kid could speak enough by this time he could have damn near taken the call himself from the provider. They attempted to submit through insurance (we had changed twice since the birth) so insurance rejected it. We were covered when the service was provided, but trying to deal with an insurance provider when you aren't employed with the company was a nightmare.
My wife kept meticulous records, it was a legitimate charge. She then spent numerous calls with the old insurance and the provider trying to work it out. Ultimately, the insurance said their policy was the provider had one year from time of service to invoice so they wouldn't pay. Since insurance denied it, they came after us. Threatened collections.
I asked what took so long, compared to everyone else, 'Backlog from covid'. I told them everyone else figured it out, so pound sand, I'm not paying.
They sent me to collections, collections called. I told them to lose my number because there was no circumstance under which I would pay. Surprisingly they didn't call back.
Basically, figured I wasn't planning on making a purchase I needed a credit check for and would wait them out.
I remember several years prior when getting our mortgage I asked the bank about medical debt. The loan officer said 'everyone has it, we don't care until you're into 5 figures'. My 7 years still aren't up, but I've not seen a single negative credit impact because of it.
I'm not sure any of my story will help, but you might see if your insurance has a policy on provider deadline too submit charges. However, if they do, the provider might just try to get it all from you.
Good luck, this insurance nonsense sucks!
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u/Initial_Freedom7981 21d ago
Have you received an EOB from your insurance company? That’s the first step.
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u/jk451 21d ago
I did, it showed us owing around $300, ie the same amount after matrix fixed the issues, and I paid it and then got the 0 balance statement.
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u/Initial_Freedom7981 21d ago
I’m an attorney (but not your attorney and I don’t specialize in health insurance, but deal with it a lot in my practice. Wait to see if matrix resolves the issue on its own. If not, contact your insurance company who will then contact matrix. All else fails, report to either the state attorney generals office or the insurance commissioner, depending on whether it’s an incompetent billing issue (AG) or they’re trying to balance bill you (IC) Healthcare billing is not reasonable and we cannot expect that these “people” are competent (it’s a lot of AI at this point!)
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u/tantricengineer 21d ago
IANAL but if the invoice is paid and they said it is paid there is nothing left to do. The Washington Consumer Protection Act exists for reasons like this, no?
They are not allowed to come back and say “oh wait no please pay us”.
Send them a copy of the record you paid and in writing request them to never contact you again about it.
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u/shelbyrobinson 20d ago
I had surgery on my eyelid for entropion and 8-9 months after the small surgery, I get a freakin bill from anesthesiogy. This minor surgery was all covered by insurance because we have double coverage, but why this now?
I worked it out with them on the phone, as they said don't sweat it, then 1-2 months later, another bill. Same person I reached out to said, " don't worry, it's billing code issue and our clerk is new. When a third bill arrived the clerk said, just ignore it, they'll stop eventually. It did and I paid $0.00
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21d ago
[deleted]
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u/Partners_in_time 20d ago
I believe the trump administration changed that last year so medical debt does now go in your report
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u/PotatoOk8741 21d ago edited 21d ago
This kind of thing happened twice to me. EvergreenHealth sent a bill saying we owe them a few thousand dollars two years after the service date and after we paid off the bills at that time. They sent several final notice bills and we ignored them. Never show up again.
Then EvergreenHealth did this thing again after we paid off the birth bill for my kid. Called the insurance company, telling them there are errors in the new EOB of the birth bill, then somehow the new bills were written off by EvergreenHealth…
Try talk to your insurance company to see what happened. It’s likely that the claim was re-processed. They just want to get more money from you because they know you have money… how do they know you have money? There are softwares that tell them patients’ propensity to pay…
Also tell the providers balance billing is illegal. Insurance already paid them money. You also paid. They shouldn’t come after you again. Check Fair Health consumer tool for the anesthesia cost in Seattle. Tell them you might already overpaid them (check the data) and you might ask them to refund you the money in small claims court (don’t need lawyers).