topic Re: Account wrongly turned over to collections in Rebuilding Your Credit

Account wrongly turned over to collections

cassie3783 — Thu, 14 Jun 2012 12:58:16 GMT

I had surgery in early 2010. I had (& still have) full medical coverage so the entire procedure was covered.

However, when I looked @ my credit report starting in 2011, I saw that a bill for 1,200 for the anesthesiologist was placed on my credit once it was turned over to a collections agency.

For whatever reason, I, stupidly, never inquired w/ my insurance company as to why that portion of the services weren't covered.

No, I decided to wait until yesterday (2 years later) to call & just out of curiosity ask why.

Come to find out, the anesthesiologist SHOULD HAVE been covered @ 100%.

The initial reason for why he/she wasn't paid was because that particular dr/office isn't in my network. BUT, my insurance (UHC) has a clause that states if an out of network dr/lab services/anesthesiologist/etc is used in an in-network facility, then, by default, ALL services rendered are covered @ 100%.

This was overlooked when the charges were sent to UHC for payment. Simply put - Human Error.

So, I spoke w/ a Supervisor from UHC and she told me they would be reviewing the claim and notifying me by mail w/in 10 business days of their finding. She verbally told me, though, that they should have paid that. But, again, I know that what she says and what the letter they'll be sending me says can be two different things.

I spoke w/ the anesthesia office & they told me that since they had turned the account over to collections, then IF UHC did send them the payment, they would have to forward it to the collections agency since they no longer have the account.

My question is, what is the likelihood of this charge coming off my credit if UHC does in fact pay the bill?

Re: Account wrongly turned over to collections

RobertEG — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 00:39:26 GMT

I would not just sit around and wait for them to correct their error on their time.

I would put them under a statutory 30-day period to investigate the matter, and take action with respect to their findings, which compels a timely update of their reporting.

If the debt was covered, placement for collection was an error, also compelling deltion of the collection.

I would send them a direct dispute under FCRA 623(a)(8). Successful resolution of the dispute would take their discretion out of the equation.

Re: Account wrongly turned over to collections

Repo-ed — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 02:20:20 GMT

@RobertEG wrote:
I would not just sit around and wait for them to correct their error on their time.
I would put them under a statutory 30-day period to investigate the matter, and take action with respect to their findings, which compels a timely update of their reporting.
If the debt was covered, placement for collection was an error, also compelling deltion of the collection.

I would send them a direct dispute under FCRA 623(a)(8). Successful resolution of the dispute would take their discretion out of the equation.

OP, take this mans advice and get to work on it STAT!

Re: Account wrongly turned over to collections

cassie3783 — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 14:23:14 GMT

Thank you both for responding.

Believe me, now that I know this bill should've never ended up on my CR in the first place, believe me, I had every intention of giving UHC 10 business days to get a letter back to me. Day 11, 9:00AM I will be calling.

I do plan to fight this with everything I've got. I should've inquired about it 2 years ago, but.........what's done is done.

@RobertEG, by sending "them" the direct dispute, do you mean the insurance or the collections agency it was turned over to?

Thanks again all!!