Do not pay medical bills that your insurance company did not pay, known as balance billing.

Millions of confused Americans are paying medical bills that they do not owe. This is typically occurring when an insurance plan will pay for less than what a hospital, doctor, or lab service wants to be paid for a medical bill. The healthcare provider then is demanding the balance of the bill from the patient. Fearing the calls of a debt collector, and uncertain what to do, the patient often times pays up without asking for help. Find how to get help from medical debt collectors. More.

Most Americans do not realize this, but unfortunately this is common practice by providers. It is known as balance billing, and is often is illegal. When a hospital or doctor thinks that a health insurer has reimbursed too little for the work, federal and state laws will generally bar the medical providers from asking, and especially pressuring medical patients to pay the difference in the medical bill. Instead, the hospitals and doctors should be negotiating and wrangling directly with insurers for the unpaid bills and debt, as those are the parties that need to pay .

Patient advocates and economists estimate that consumers are paying more than $1 billion a year for which they are not responsible for paying. The California Association of Health Plans, which a trade group that is in Sacramento, has estimated that almost 2 million policyholders, just in California, have received such medical bills in the last two years, and the total mount of over $500 million. The group found that 56% of consumers paid the bills.

Balance billing will most frequently occur with medical providers that participate in a managed-care network. It is more common for these providers to believe that the plan's insurer is giving too deep a discount on medical bills or that the insurer is taking too long to pay a bill.

Most state laws require medical providers to seek payment for a bill only from the insurer for any services covered by the plan. Many states will also protect insured patients from balance billing by all out-of-network doctors and hospitals in emergencies, since the patients usually do not control what doctor of hospital treats them in those situations.

If this happens to you, you should contact an attorney, or contact your state regulator, for help with your medical bill.