$25 heart attack

[Anonymous]

Was having my first cup of coffee at my desk this morning & got an alert today from my credit monitoring services about a new "collection" account. 
COLLECTION??????  I almost lost it.  I filed Chap 7 in 2010 and have done a pretty damn good job of rebuilding, and part of that is making sure everything is paid early.  Not on time, but early.  So seeing this on a Monday morning was not good.  Looked up the alert and saw it was from some CA out of Tennessee for a $25 charge from my doctor's office dated July of last year.  My first reaction was just to pay the damn thing and figure out the details later...after all, it was only $25.  Which is what I did. Called the CA, told them I had no knowledge of a past due bill for anything.  I had received no letter, phone call or anything.  They really didn't give a flying F about that..."here's the bill - pay it.".  I asked if I paid over the phone, would they remove the derog, which they would not.  Only show that it had been "paid". 
Not good enough.  I called my doctor's office - who uses an off-site company for their billing, and got the number for the billing dept.  Spoke to them, and they said it was for an office visit co-pay that I had not paid.  I said, "Look, lady - you don't get taken back to see the doctor without paying the co-pay up front...", at which point she agreed that was the correct policy.  I told her that I had already paid the CA the $25 but if I paid her the $$ would she contact the CA to get the derog removed - which she agreed.  She said that it was an insurance issue, that the copay should have been $50 per my insurance, and that I paid $25 at the time of service - leaving a $25 balance due.  I'll deal with the insurance company later. 
Called back the CA - and sent an email - stating the charge was in error and that I had spoken with the OC about the issue and that they would contacting them to remove the derog and to refund the $25 payment I had made 30 minutes earlier. 
OC called back, said all had been handled and emailed me the receipt of the payment to them.  Said would take up to 15 days to have derog removed.
Received email from CA a short while later, said they had been in contact with OC and was entering the removal order for the derog today, but said they "could not say how long it would take the derog to be removed".   Thankfully the derog was only reported to one agency, EQ. 
So now I'll wait to see how long it takes for this to come off...hopefully not too long.  I'll update when it does.  FWIW - I also filed a dispute wiht EQ, just to see what that would do.  Moral of this story - NEVER deal with CA's - they are the lowest form of life.  Deal with the OC - your chances of getting what you want go up dramatically.

[Appleman]

Over $25 that you would have happily paid if you knew about it......

I am angry for you!

[Anonymous]

Exactly!  Both the OC and CA said they sent notifications, but like I told both of them, I knew nothing of this charge.  Zero, zilch, nada.  I had the Dr's office billing dept on the phone to make the payment to them, she was like- well, you know there will be  FIVE DOLLAR CHARGE to make this payment.  I DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE FIVE DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!!!! RUN THE PAYMENT! PULL THE COLLECTION!    I got a piece of mail today from a medical lab for $7.38.  It was originally a $50 charge but insurance paid all but the $7.  I'm going to call and take care of this tomorrow.  It's stupid stuff like this that can ruin you.

[Anonymous]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

Exactly!  Both the OC and CA said they sent notifications, but like I told both of them, I knew nothing of this charge.  Zero, zilch, nada.  I had the Dr's office billing dept on the phone to make the payment to them, she was like- well, you know there will be  FIVE DOLLAR CHARGE to make this payment.  I DO NOT CARE ABOUT THE FIVE DOLLARS!!!!!!!!!!!!! RUN THE PAYMENT! PULL THE COLLECTION!    I got a piece of mail today from a medical lab for $7.38.  It was originally a $50 charge but insurance paid all but the $7.  I'm going to call and take care of this tomorrow.  It's stupid stuff like this that can ruin you.

---

I'm with you this.  I spent a year in the hospital after an accident and bills pop up out of outer space even three years later. Collection agencies sending letters that I have no idea why. I just pay them and  worry about who and why later.  These little charges will kill your reports.

[Anonymous]

Equifax score spiked 31 points today.  According to their dispute "check status" page- the dispute is still "pending" but looks like the derog has been taken down, per the order/direction of the OC.   New 3B report comes out on Wednesday - will know for sure then.

[Appleman]

Congrats, send the collection agency the bill for the heart attack!

[EW800]

I was darn near shaking as I read your account of what happened.  Through my rebuild process over the past few years, my worst fear has been having something like an old co-pay showing up, just as you experienced.  I have zero knowledge of owing anyone a dime, but it crosses my mind constantly about it being so easy for some doctors office or medical billing company someplace triggering something like this.  As an example, my wife recently had some significant (and expensive) medical tests done.  We will certainly be receiving bills from a hospital, a couple of doctors, an x-ray center and a place that does lab work.  All it takes is one of them to mess up and cause (possibly) years of grief.  

Very pleased to see that it appears that you got it resolved!!  

[driftless]

One acronym: HIPAA. Google it and search here.

[Kevin86475391]

So glad that you were able to get this handled and taken off your report quickly!

This type of thing is a huge pet peeve of mine. Medical billing needs to be seriously reformed - like I'm not talking about costs or prices at all in this. Let's set that aside - just the actual process so many doctors and hospitals use for billing is a complete shambles. You can get all these separate bills from separate entities for the same visit, and they seem incredibly prone to errors.

Several months back I got a past due bill for some lab work. I flipped out and called them immediately because I knew this was the first notice I'd gotten. Sure enough when I got someone on the phone they acknowledge, "Yeah, it's past due, but we just didn't send you the original bill." Um what?! How is that 'past due'? That's you being inept with your billing practices. They assured me that there weren't any extra fees or charges and that nothing had been reported to my credit, which indeed it's been awhile now and I haven't had any issues.

Years before that I got a lab bill for $75.XX, paid it immediately, then about a week later got another bill from the exact same company for $75.XX. Now I admit this is my own negligence too, but since I'd just gotten and paid the first one I assumed it was a duplicate and ignored the second one...then I got a past due notice (fortunately, again nothing went to collections or caused any derogs). Turns out that it was just two separate $75-something bills from the same company for the same visit, and the change was slightly different but I hadn't noticed. Why they couldn't consolidate them onto the same bill, or at least send them at the same time so that I could compare them side by side and realize they were different, is beyond me.

I know in many instances it's different groups and companies performing different services, but frankly I think THEY need to coordinate with each other to send patients a single bill for a single visit. If they can coordinate to perform the services they can damn well coordinate to get and distribute payment. Just my opinion though.

Anyway, here's hoping everything is truly resolved, OP.

[Anonymous]

CK report updated today, which I only use to get free EQ and TU reports.  Checked the EQ full report & the collection is gone.  Intrestingly enough, it was an alert from CK that first notified me of the collection showing.  The alert from MyFICO came about 2 hours later, after I had already gone on the offensive.

Good guys won this round!