until after a lawsuit is filed (and won) by them. Normally your account is just aged for 90 days. In the 90-150 day past due window the account would be sent to a collection agency. They would dun you for 60-90 days and then threaten to sue.

Most companies are willing to set up a payment plan with you to ensure that their money is received. If it goes to a collection agency, they lose money, sometimes up to 50% of what is collected.

If you cannot convince hospital and insurance company that you should not be held liable, then somewhere within the 90 days, you should be talking to the hospital finance department to arrange a payment schedule.

FWIW - I wrote credit collection software 20 years ago. Things may have changed, but the basic philosophy is still to give consumer every opportunity to pay BEFORE legal action is taken.