None of your hypotheticals actually happened in this situation. The hospital clerk wrote down that she was "in-network", gave her a quote and then after the pr

None of your hypotheticals actually happened in this situation. The hospital clerk wrote down that she was "in-network", gave her a quote and then after the procedure, the hospital discovered she was not, and upped the quote by $200k. Hospitals do whatever dishonest stuff they feel like all time, and the worst consequence to them is that they don't get their $200k and consequentially ruin someone's life with debt collectors. If every time hospitals tried to steal from someone - because that's what this is - one of their senior managers did a year in the penitentiary, such brazen dishonesty would cease overnight.