topic Re: Hospital bill that wont go away! in Rebuilding Your Credit

Hospital bill that wont go away!

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 06:49:15 GMT

so I went to the emergency room out of state. my insurance was due to cover this as it was an emergency visit. I got a letter in the mail that I owed an outrageous bill. Well, I got on the phone and "got it straightened out" Since then, it has been about 4 years give or take since this large bill was owed, and it is still showing in collections now as $600 owed. Issue is.

I have spoken with both the hospital crediting people and my insurance people for the first 2/3 years straight when all calls ending with "we will get this taken care of" each time, I get a bill in the mail 4-6 months later for this same service. Looking these past months at my history on Credit Karma of course this bill is showing as derogatory, and I can seem to get it removed. I tried to go through the process on the CK website and it came back as being a verified bill which it shouldn't be. It shows this bill as being in collections for 7 months; opened October 2019 when I haven't even been to the hospital in a few years! Is there anything that I can do about this?

The issue is, they constantly tell me on 3-way calls that it will be taken care of and never is. It seems the system for my insurance the hospital has to signup for something in order to get the payment. Well, they never do, and every time I call in, the notes with this information is never in the hospital's information notes. This should not have been on my credit report at all as I was 100% not responsible for this bill. What course of action can I take to get this removed? Mind you, the original date of service was at least a few years ago and the collections account was just opened in October of 2019. It seems like fraud to me as this refreshes the 7-year date to which it falls off. Even if I were to wait for it to fall off, it should be halfway or more than halfway there.

the remarks left on credit karma was "account information disputed by consumer, meets FCRA requirements"

This is the only derogatory remark on my credit reports and I would like to get this removed asap.

To add, if it makes any difference, this is a third party collections agency 'Americollect'

Re: Hospital bill that wont go away!

FireMedic1 — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 08:45:26 GMT

Login into your insurance plans website and look at what was rendered and what was/wasnt paid. There are many stories of people who go to a ER out of network and then the insurance company wont pay because it was deemed a non emergency and a urgent care center could have treated the diagnosis the same. It wasnt a true emergency. Ask your insurance co. if this is the case. If so this might be why they didnt pay.

Re: Hospital bill that wont go away!

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 09:04:00 GMT

@FireMedic1this wasnt the case here. insurance company wants to cover the entire costs and due to the many many phone calls I've spoken with them, many on three way with the billing department and my insurance, Illinois where I went to urgent care doesnt want to signup for the insurance thing where they have to in order to be paid. They say they will do it every time, The insurance company has sent over the link and walked them through the simply process of doing it so that they can get the money. The hospital billing says they will, but never do. So in order for them to get the money, there is something they have to sign up for in the system in order to get the bill paid and they never did it. Each time I call, the notes about it isn't even in the billing departments notes and I've spoken with them a bunch. Its simple, they dont want to signup for the ability to accept the payment from my insurance company and find it easier to just send me the bill for it or send it to collections. But yes, I have letter and phone calls stating that I am not responsible for ANY of the charges related to the visit.

Re: Hospital bill that wont go away!

FireMedic1 — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 09:43:51 GMT

Was it a major hosptial chain like HCA, Tenet, Advent Health, Baptist Health that owns the Urgent Care center? Or just a local one owned by a doc.

Re: Hospital bill that wont go away!

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 09:48:19 GMT

@FireMedic1This was a pretty major chain. Quite a few around here, but not like some that are nationwide

he insurance company sendRe: Hospital bill that wont go away!

FireMedic1 — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 13:28:44 GMT

Man. Tough spot. I'd have the insurance company send me the form and I'd go to the UC Center and say here fill this out. Then fax it back. What a mess that could take a couple mins. Could be FRCA lawyer time.

Re: Hospital bill that wont go away!

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 14:42:36 GMT

FireMedic is right this is a tough spot and crappy situation. FCRA wise they are reporting correctly, because there is a debt owed. Thats why the dispute is coming back as verified because Ameritech and the hospital are able to verify that there is a balance owed on the account. The circumstances surrounding the balance are not at play here for the dispute. It's a crappy and unfair situation, but Ameritech is accurately reporting based on the information they have and were given.

I would call the hospital and get the highest person up that you can that has to do with billing, insurance, etc. Engage in another 3 way call with your insurance, and record the conversation (be sure to let them know you are recording) and let this person know the story and that insurance has attempted to pay since before the collection was ever initiated, insurance rep should be able to corroborate that. Make sure the hospital understands that it is up to them to sign up and get the payment and that the hospital rep agrees that the hospital will do that. Tell them that the account should not be in collections because they have refused to accept payment multiple times, and that they should recall the account from the CA immediately.

If you can get all of that on tape, then you have solid proof in case you do have to go the legal route.

Alternately, gdale6 (forum mod) has a method for medical collections. He says medical collections are some of the easiest to get removed from your CRs, here are the steps that you should follow to address them: (I would think you can skip straight to step 5)

1. Call the OC and see if insurance can be billed, (or-rebilled), collections ultimately paid by insurance get removed per new rules that came from CRAs settlement with 22 state AGs. If not then
2. see if you qualify for Charity Care, if not then
3. ask that they recall the collection in exchange for full payment
4. Send the reporting CA a PFD offer
5. Google the HIPAA Process and contact its creator for help, this process cannot be discussed in any forum of myFico.

Good luck with getting this situation resolved.

Re: Hospital bill that wont go away!

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 21:55:53 GMT

@Anonymous"1. Call the OC and see if insurance can be billed, (or-rebilled), collections ultimately paid by insurance get removed per new rules that came from CRAs settlement with 22 state AGs."

This is where the issue stims from, it was multiple years before it was even assigned to a debt collection agency as they kept going back and forth saying it was taken care of by insurance. The problem was, The insurance you have to be a registered with them to receive payment. Its an easy signup on their website and then any claims issued would be paid out. Each time I talked to them, they verified this and said it would be taken care of. years and many calls later, apparently it wasn't and was sent to a debt collection agency.

The issue is the hospital didn't do what was necessary to bill the insurance that I had and was active, and now I'm suffering for it.

I can try to give it another shot, but with so many calls over the years and them specficially telling me its taken care of and noted etc. even with my insurance on the line walking them through everything, it would never actually be taken care of and months down the line I'd get another bill and repeat the process. and again, and again, and again. So, even talking to them again and getting this assurance, it's like "will this time really be the time that they do the process and the claim is processed correctly"

Re: Hospital bill that wont go away!

Anonymous — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 22:27:11 GMT

@Anonymous I was saying to skip all of the first 4 steps and go straight to the HIPAA process. I understand your frustration, and all you can do is keep trying.

Re: Hospital bill that wont go away!

FireMedic1 — Fri, 12 Jun 2020 23:38:13 GMT

@AnonymousFind out who the CEO is of the local hospital thats tied to this UC Center. Hospitals write off so many bills to keep people happy so their satisfaction scores stay high. Then they get paid more from CMS and so forth. Write him/her a explanation of all you have been thru and send it out. If you have names and even the documents you can send in great. If you could get a letter from the insurance company willing to pay but the hospital billing office wont comply with filing of the apporpriate forms so they could get paid. That should do it. You can also send a copy to the CFO. (Financial) And of course ask them to get this off your reports at the same time.

Re: Hospital bill that wont go away!

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Jun 2020 16:59:49 GMT

I had an issue with a medical bill for my son's ear tubes.

For some reason, when ever a provider tried to verify his benefits via the website, Anthem sent it back as invalid policy. BUT if they picked up the darn phone and called it in, it verified just fine. Anthem sent it to their tech team many times and they never did figure out why this happened.

Anyway, the ENT surgeon's office and surgical center both figured it out just fine to verify coverage before the surgery and I prepaid what was not covered. When it came to the rest o log the bill, Mercy Care's billing office tried to verify through the system before submitting the charges to Anthem, got the no policy and just billed me. I called them, told them what was happening, 3-way called them with Anthem to get the billing department to hear straight from the horse's mouth that it was valid and they'd be paid in full for the balance. And they still didn't submit. We did this monthly almost and nothing happened. They finally submitted it-- and typoed the paperwork.

By this time, their window to submit had lapsed. So back on the phone, 3 way call, they were given an extension of 90 days to submit and were told by anthem on the call that it would be paid in full if they actually submit. And then they went back to square one and wouldn't submit because of the error. I called them several more times during their extension and they did not submit and it timed out again and Anthem told them they would not extend. They tried to send me to collections. I called and finally got transferred high enough up the Mercycare ladder-- I explained what happened, we did ANOTHER 3-way call with Anthem and the anthem rep told this senior manager that the remaining charges would have been covered in full, but they failed to properly submit the claim and Mwecy ultimately zeroed our my balance since it would not have gone unpaid had they not messed it up so many times in the first place.

Keep fighting with the provider-- ultimately if failure to properly file the claim is on their end, they should by law have to waive the charges. However, as info, if they normally do not take your insurance that may ultimately leave you hanging on the long run.

Re: Hospital bill that wont go away!

Anonymous — Sat, 13 Jun 2020 19:12:04 GMT

@Anonymousso even though the hospital bill is years old, and the agency is reporting it as a new debt from late last year, they can do that? I thought at least the dates had to be correct or they can just continue reporting old debts as new and they would never fall off

as another member stated, I'll try and call sometime this upcoming week and speak to a higher up at the hospital in billing and try and threeway the insurance again. Its just funny they always say its taken care of, and my insurance company has all the notes and everything but every time I call the hospital billing its like Im calling for the first time. no notes, nothing! It's like they don't even attempt to do their job. They offered me the program to pay a lower amount, i believe the original bill was over $10k. but you would rather collect $600 from me, then to actually process the claim correctly and get more than $10,000 from the insurance provider. That makes absolutely no sense

Re: Hospital bill that wont go away!

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 00:51:02 GMT

You are correct, the dates of the debt have to be correct. They are only reportable for 7 years past the default date. Medical debts unpaid do NOT default until the 6 month mark. Changing the dates of the original default for the purpose of credit reporting (to make the debt look newer) is called re-aging and it is an illegal violation of the FCRA.

however- a medical debt collector can list the date that the account has passed to them, and in doing so it can look like it is a newer debt-- it should still fall off at the 7 year after delinquency date though.

what I was referring to is that a medical provider usually has a specific time frame to file a claim with an insurance company. If they fail to do so in a timely manner, it may be possible to get out of the debt because it only exists as a debt due to their error. It depends on how it was filed. The medical service provider could turn around and say that they do not normally take your insurance and that is why they did not bill them properly. There is no error on their end of that is the honest case and the issue you are having is due to negotiation break down between the provider and your insurance company. A billing agent wouldn't have the level of authority needed to start that relationship and most large medical providers have entire departments that deal with that.

Once the original medical bill is 7 years, 6 mos old, it all becomes moot-- it can't be reported on your credit legally in MOST circumstances and in most states, enforced collections are past the SOL-- that being said, always check your mail. Unscrupulous creditors can and do file collection lawsuits and win by default because it goes ignored.

My husband had that happen to him before we met and it became an obstacle when we were buying a house. We got a lawyer involved and he counseled that the time frame was so long since the judgement had been won that he had no leg to stand on to appeal it. We had to negotiate with them instead.

Good luck in your efforts to get it resolved. I'll be rooting for you 🙂

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymousso even though the hospital bill is years old, and the agency is reporting it as a new debt from late last year, they can do that? I thought at least the dates had to be correct or they can just continue reporting old debts as new and they would never fall off

as another member stated, I'll try and call sometime this upcoming week and speak to a higher up at the hospital in billing and try and threeway the insurance again. Its just funny they always say its taken care of, and my insurance company has all the notes and everything but every time I call the hospital billing its like Im calling for the first time. no notes, nothing! It's like they don't even attempt to do their job. They offered me the program to pay a lower amount, i believe the original bill was over $10k. but you would rather collect $600 from me, then to actually process the claim correctly and get more than $10,000 from the insurance provider. That makes absolutely no sense

Re: Hospital bill that wont go away!

Anonymous — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 02:34:30 GMT

@Anonymous wrote:
@Anonymousso even though the hospital bill is years old, and the agency is reporting it as a new debt from late last year, they can do that? I thought at least the dates had to be correct or they can just continue reporting old debts as new and they would never fall off

as another member stated, I'll try and call sometime this upcoming week and speak to a higher up at the hospital in billing and try and threeway the insurance again. Its just funny they always say its taken care of, and my insurance company has all the notes and everything but every time I call the hospital billing its like Im calling for the first time. no notes, nothing! It's like they don't even attempt to do their job. They offered me the program to pay a lower amount, i believe the original bill was over $10k. but you would rather collect $600 from me, then to actually process the claim correctly and get more than $10,000 from the insurance provider. That makes absolutely no sense

just because the CA reports "opened" on a certain date, that is not the actual DoFD. That date is completely legit, because that is actually when they got it and opened the CA. That would be illegal to say the CA opened before it actually did. If under DoFD it is listing the new date, that is absolutely wrong and a violation. Go over the credit entry carefully.

Good luck!