Hospital requesting an appeal on a denied claim?

Not really sure where to begin but in April of last year my wife's mental health hit rock bottom and we needed to admit her to a psychiatric hospital. She was there for over a week and is now doing much better. Three months after she was discharged we received an EOB from our insurance (Anthem BC/BS) stating the facility had billed them 20k but Anthem wasn't going to pay them because they filed the claim too late. The EOB explicitly states that we are also not responsible for the payment.

A few months later we received another EOB and it was the same deal. The facility requested 20k but Anthem denied it for being outside the appropriate window. Again EOB clearly stated that my wife and I are not responsible for this payment.

Today (10 months after the admission) Anthem sent my wife a letter requesting permission for the facility to file an appeal on the claim

My question is do we fill out the form? The facility was out of network but there wasn't an in network facility within 50 miles so I have no idea how much if any Anthem would cover. (We live in Denver, CO and the only in network facility was in Fort Collins, CO).

I'm getting the sense that if we ignore this appeal the problem might go away but any advice or info would be amazing!!

TL;DR: hospital waited too long to file a claim and insurance denied it. Do we give them permission to file an appeal?

submitted by /u/DDC_72
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