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Importance of detailed medical bills

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Conswalla
Contributor

Importance of detailed medical bills

Hello FICO FORUM,

 

I have 3 medical bills on my credit report.  I successfully had 1 removed by the OC from WomenCare OBGYN.  I'm working on the other 2 bills and I started with a bill from Doylestown Hospital (DH) from when I was admitted to the ER.  I requested an itemized bill and went through it extensively.  I noticed that a claim was denied that should have been paid under my medical plan.  I contacted UHC and they said the claim was denied because the hospital submitted it over a year after the date of service.

 

The representative at UHC said this happens more than you think.  Hospitals will do audits and notice that a claim was not submitted.  They will submit the claim and try to get it pushed through.  If they're not successful, some will try to get the patient to pay.  WOW!  I contacted DH and advised them of what I found and followed it up with a letter and back-up documentation.  I received a letter today from DH that they're going to have the CA remove the entry from my credit report and my account now has a $0.00 balance.

 

I was going to pay this bill and then follow-up with GW letters to try to get it cleared off my credit report.  Thank goodness for this site.  I learned about debt validation and the importance of requesting itemized bills for medical collection.  Thank you FICO FORUM!

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2 REPLIES 2
KnewBee
New Contributor

Re: Importance of detailed medical bills

+1. Glad this worked out for you!

 

I recently paid a $1000 medical collection for two emergency room visits that had not hit my reports yet. The bills from the hospital and CA showed that my insurance had reimbursed a portion of the charges but not all of them even though I also made big copayments at the time I had the ER visits. After I paid it I was talking to a nurse friend of mine that is very familiar with my insurance plan, hospital, and what I went to the ER for. She told me similar to your post that billing errors occur all the time and from what I told her, my insurance should have covered the additional portion after my big copay (Although of course she had no way to know for sure)

 

Even though $1000 is a lot of money, I am so busy and have no time or energy right now to go back and review this so unlikely I will go back and review it anytime soon although I may tackle it later and it never hit my reports, but hopefully if other people here read this thread this may save them some money by confirming the medical collections, billings and / or insurance reimbursements are correct before they pay as these types of errors appear to be very common. 

Starting Scores: 9/19/2012 EQ 613 / TU 526 / EX 543
Current Scores: EQ 716 TU 724 EX 724 Goal Scores: 700
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Conswalla
Contributor

Re: Importance of detailed medical bills

I agree KnewBee and that's why I share my stories.  Helping others while helping yourslef is what this site is about.

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