St. Joe’s patient account services 8-6-2012
To whom may be able to help;
My name is Edited. I have lived in Edited for about 6 years, and have always used St. Joe’s for my medical needs. My wife and I have had two children born here, at your birthing center, which we very much enjoyed. We have never had health insurance; we have always paid for all of our medical bills out of pocket. We paid for our children’s births, and although we have sometimes had to make payments, for the most part we have paid as due. We have respected your payment policies for self-pay people like us, and we understand the importance of health care providers receiving timely payment for services rendered.
I had an infection in my ear last year, and had to visit the ER for it. You wouldn’t think an ear ache would bring a person in to the ER, but this was significant and required an IV antibiotic treatment as we as some pain medication. The infection had traveled deep into my inner ear, and without this treatment it’s unclear what may have happened. I was and continue to be very grateful for the expert care I received.
As for the billing for this visit, I can’t say what went wrong because I’m not sure. I work a lot, usually more than 100 hours per week, and somehow this bill was overlooked, not sent, tossed out…again I am not sure where the breakdown in our communications happened. All I know is that I have always paid my bills to you, and when I realized this one went to DCI collection services, I promptly paid it in full.
Now the question comes to this: I need your help in removing this item from my credit. A recent collection is a serious ding to a person’s credit, and I never had that much to begin with. Therefore, it was a dramatic reduction in my score, and while this would not be a terrible issue, there is a pressing matter at hand. I had long term housing in Edited but that lease is up and I am now forced into the market of purchase, because the rental market is so very tight. With the reduction in my credit score because of the recent and large collection, my mortgage broker is telling me I cannot finance right now. This is making an extreme hardship on my family, as if I cannot secure housing; I will lose my job and be forced to move to another area.
It is in your power to contact DCI and remove this item, by simply asking them to, or even invoking the HIPPA law and telling them that I opted out of patient sharing information. I plead and beg of you, for my sake and my families, to take into account that I have always paid my bills to you, and to contact DCI at your earliest convenience and have this item removed.
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