Medical Bill Sent To Collections After Issues With Insurance

Location: Wisconsin

I had surgery last year of February 17, 2025. I had two insurances at the time with my second insurance ending in May 2025. My secondary insurance made an initial payment as primary, leaving me to only owe about $450. Then they retracted that payment as my primary insurance should've made the payment first, leaving me with a bill of about $9600 unclaimed for as my primary insurance has been having issues reprocessing as my primary. They had let me know about this since June/July of 2025 and I've been calling since to deal with this. I've been juggling back and forth between my primary insurance, second insurance, and the billing department from the hospital. Initially, each representative were all telling me different things (what needed to be done, what information/paperwork was needed, wait time, etc.). Essentially, in September, I had finally talked to a representative that found it ridiculous that I was put in the middle of all this, submitted a claim and gave me a claim number and told me to not do anything as I had already paid off the $450 that I initially owed.

The hospital billing department was still sending me monthly statement of the $9600 that I owed, but I listened to insurance and did not do anything about it as I was told. Flash forward to December 2025, I checked my hospital account and showed the amount went to $0. My bill went to collections. Here I am again, calling between insurances. My primary insurance told me I needed to send them paperwork of my second insurance's EOB as it gives a reason why they retracted their payment. I sent it to them via mail to the address they gave me. Two weeks later I called, they claimed they never received it. Asked them how I can submit it then online, they didn't know themselves. Called my secondary insurance, and god bless Robin who was the only helpful person in the whole year who saw this as ridiculous, requested to be put in a three-way conference call with me and my primary insurance. Since they are both UHC, Robin stated they can just look that information up and 1) not need to put me in the middle and 2) should not be taking this long. That representative struggled to figure it out and essentially, after 10 mins, said "Ok, I put it in for reprocessing, it should take about 10-30 days". So it was that quick for you to put in that request, why has this been taking MONTHs and leaving it to go to collections??

It's been two weeks and I had just called again for any updates, and this man told me there have been no updates and for me to "wait until the second week of February". The problem is, my medical claim is from February 17, 2025. If it reaches one year of the medical claim, would it effect it at all? He had no answer for me either.

I am beyond frustrated. I am a 26 y/o who never goes for anything medical and this was my first time needing a procedure done, so I have no clue how insurance works or what to do. Collections had tried calling me last month, but I did not answer. They sent me a text message on December 22, 2025 with my reference number to the amount I owe of $9600. I was reading from other forums that I should ask for the original creditor, which I did, and they sent me a verification letter of the original creditor on January 9, 2026. Do or should I make contact with collections at all? I am so lost on what to do and how long I need to wait, if waiting until February to see if my insurance is able to reprocess as my primary insurance to make the payment, if it would effect the amount they pay due to reaching a year of the medical claim. I am engaged and wanting to buy a home with my fiancé this year, I have very good credit at the moment before this collections bill has yet to effect it. Any advice is appreciated.