Longer story, but the timing of the emergency and recovery period fell within an ineligibility window for COBRA. My previous insurance company wouldn't have covered it anyway. It was the worst Blue Shield plan that I didn't even know could be legal. Also, I got the first few bills, was like okay, I'll just pay these off and move on and not even bother. These were the only bills I could find in their patient portal at the time. Then I got hit with the massive ones that made my head spin. By that time I had started at my new employer, my new insurance hadn't kicked in and I was outside of the COBRA window, not that it would have covered it anyway.
From now on I'm making sure I have good insurance, which requires a crazy amount of due diligence, but not something I'll take for granted anymore. It's one of reasons I'm currently trying to move to another country. Quality of healthcare is important, but how much does it matter if you're in massive debt, lost nearly everything, and don't have a retirement anymore?
You have 60 days to file (in writing by mail, in my case) once you leave your previous job, I didn't have enough time between jobs to really need it, emergency happens + a few weeks of recovery time where I'm incapable of basically doing anything, I get a few bills, I pay them, start working at my new job, get more and much larger bills, now I'm ineligible for Cobra. Not that it would have mattered with that insurer anyway in my case.
