medical company did not bill insurance, 4 years later in collection

[Anonymous]

I was recently looking at my credit report and I saw that there was a collection when I was covered by insurance 4 years ago. This company even sent me the medication by mail and billed it to my insurance. Even so, I suppose one slipped by them and now they are charging me $250 and it is in collections. I never received a bill, no notification, zero. It has been 4 years, at this point what advice can you all give me as a form of recourse. Do I write letters? If so, i have since switched insurance like 5 times and am uncertain how to obtain that insurance information that i had when this occurred. 

Any help is appreciated. 

[joedtx]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

I was recently looking at my credit report and I saw that there was a collection when I was covered by insurance 4 years ago. This company even sent me the medication by mail and billed it to my insurance. Even so, I suppose one slipped by them and now they are charging me $250 and it is in collections. I never received a bill, no notification, zero. It has been 4 years, at this point what advice can you all give me as a form of recourse. Do I write letters? If so, i have since switched insurance like 5 times and am uncertain how to obtain that insurance information that i had when this occurred. 

Any help is appreciated. 

---

Ok, let's look at this from several angles. 1st step is to identify what the original DOS or Date of Service to determine who was your active insurance carrier  at that time. You are ultimately responsible for any charges that resulted from non payment (number of reasons) not the medical facility or doctors office they only provided the service. Now let's consider what your options are, most insurance policies have a filing deadline of 90 days - 3 years it varies by the carrier and the provisions of your policy in effect at that time. Heres what I'd suggest

1. Identify Date of Service for bill in question

2. Clarify who was your insurance at that time.

3. Once the insurance carrier is identified, contact them to obtain any information related to that claim. (It does not matter if you don't have that insurance anymore)

4. Once the claim is located its possible an appeal can be submitted or the claim reconsidered (you are the policyholder)

5. If this if paid / recalled / reconsidered the collection will be retracted.

Start there and let us know how it goes.

[Anonymous]

Check your states "statute of limitations" for collecting debt.  In some states it is 3 years.If the original creditor has not come after you by now, they probably won't.  Shady collections entities troll various sources looking for old debt.  Then they'll send letters to try to collect because they know most folks will contact them because they don't want negative information on their credit report.  Don't do that!!!  You contacting them is viewed as you potentially acknowledging the debt and possibly re-starting the "debt owed clock".   If it is on your credit report, send a dispute letter to all three credit bureaus and to the collection agency.  Also send a cease and desist letter to the collector.  By law they can't attempt to collect anymore. However there can be drawbacks to having the debt verified.  See the link below for really good information on that subject.

Good luck!

reference:  From Bankrate.com 

"Once a debt passes beyond the statute of limitation in your state, a debt collector no longer has the right to sue you for payment. You may still have a moral obligation to pay back an old, forgotten debt, but you can't be sued over it.  Any debt collector who threatens to sue you over a debt that is beyond the statute of limitation in your state is in violation of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act."

http://www.avoidbk.com/debt-validation-letter/