hello all. just a quick public service announcement about protecting yourself against medical collections...
for 4 years i worked at a california law firm and spent 80% of my time dealing with medical billing and collections.
please note for future reference that you should double check all of your hospital bills to make sure that everything gets paid and adjusted according to your HI coverages. you should make sure that the hospital has all of your billing information correct. this includes your name, address, phone number, date of birth, social security number, etc.
at the end of the day we are all personally responsible for our medical bills. if joe shmoe in the billing department mistypes our date of birth on the ins. claim form we are stuck with the bill and the collections. we are stuck with their mistake and left to clean up the mess.
be proactive. be in contact with both the hospital and your health insurance. get copies of everything. look at the bills and make sure that all the charges belong to you and also make sure the hospital did not miss anything. sometimes there are separate charges coming from different companies for the same date of visit. Make sure they are all billing HI and getting paid right away.
If there is a long delay and you are being threatened with collections pay the bill yourself and ask your HI to reimburse you for what you paid.
for 4 years i worked at a california law firm and spent 80% of my time dealing with medical billing and collections.
please note for future reference that you should double check all of your hospital bills to make sure that everything gets paid and adjusted according to your HI coverages. you should make sure that the hospital has all of your billing information correct. this includes your name, address, phone number, date of birth, social security number, etc.
at the end of the day we are all personally responsible for our medical bills. if joe shmoe in the billing department mistypes our date of birth on the ins. claim form we are stuck with the bill and the collections. we are stuck with their mistake and left to clean up the mess.
be proactive. be in contact with both the hospital and your health insurance. get copies of everything. look at the bills and make sure that all the charges belong to you and also make sure the hospital did not miss anything. sometimes there are separate charges coming from different companies for the same date of visit. Make sure they are all billing HI and getting paid right away.
If there is a long delay and you are being threatened with collections pay the bill yourself and ask your HI to reimburse you for what you paid.
