Medical collection, Had insurance

[Anonymous]

So this situation is a little weird, I recently started looking over my free credit reports for the year. I managed to dispute 1 that was incorrect and had it drop off my credit, but then another one that I've never seen before popped up on Experian. It's the only bureau showing this account.

I then received a letter from the CA that now holds the account, apparently they got it from another agency. 

Naturally I started calling around to see if I could get in touch with the original billing company to find out where the debt came from as I didn't recall ever having it.

Went around in circles with a couple people from the billing company as they couldn't locate any account with my name on it.

When I finally contacted the CA they couldn't find it either but the manager found out why, the collection was from an emergency room visit for my son.

Now I finally remembered what had happened!
Problem is he had Medicaid at the time so this charge should've been fully covered. I know for a fact that I gave them the info because he had to get medicine the night I took him and that was completely covered by his insurance as well. 

My question is what should I do about this? Will proving he had insurance help? If I manage to do that will they still hold me liable for the charges? Does anyone have any experience with this?

[medicgrrl]

Now that you know it was for your son, call the hospital back and talk with them about the billing of his account.  Find out why they say you owe a balance or whether it was a billing error.

[Anonymous]

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@medicgrrl wrote:

Now that you know it was for your son, call the hospital back and talk with them about the billing of his account.  Find out why they say you owe a balance or whether it was a billing error.

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I'll try that today, I'm just wondering if that will change things or if they will still hold me liable for the account. It's past timely filing so they can't bill his medicaid anymore, even so we're in another state now so he doesn't have the same insurance.

[gdale6]

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@medicgrrl wrote:

Now that you know it was for your son, call the hospital back and talk with them about the billing of his account.  Find out why they say you owe a balance or whether it was a billing error.

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I'll try that today, I'm just wondering if that will change things or if they will still hold me liable for the account. It's past timely filing so they can't bill his medicaid anymore, even so we're in another state now so he doesn't have the same insurance.

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They will try to hold you responsible if Medicaid wont pay, claims can be filed up to 1 year after the date of service whether or not your son has current coverage. If you know you gave them the info then I may threaten to sue if they dont write it off as it would be their error not yours.

[Anonymous]

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@gdale6 wrote:

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@Anonymous wrote:

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@medicgrrl wrote:

Now that you know it was for your son, call the hospital back and talk with them about the billing of his account.  Find out why they say you owe a balance or whether it was a billing error.

---

I'll try that today, I'm just wondering if that will change things or if they will still hold me liable for the account. It's past timely filing so they can't bill his medicaid anymore, even so we're in another state now so he doesn't have the same insurance.

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They will try to hold you responsible if Medicaid wont pay, claims can be filed up to 1 year after the date of service whether or not your son has current coverage. If you know you gave them the info then I may threaten to sue if they dont write it off as it would be their error not yours.

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That's what I was talking about in my previous response, timely filing with the insurance he had at the time was only 6 months; he was part of an MCO. The collection is from over 4 years ago but they just recently bought it from another CA. 

I'll have to discuss it with the billing company first I guess because I know the insurance was given to them. And if I have to take legal action I will, I'm not paying for something that should've been fully covered because of their mistake.

[Anonymous]

I had this happen! I was sent to a " cosmetic surgeon" that medicaid wouldnt pay for and so i got stuck with the bill. 

[Anonymous]

Did they classify the surgery as cosmetic? If it was medical they should've covered it.

[Anonymous]

******Update*******
Spoke to the billing company, I completely forgot but it turns out that at the time my son was covered by Medicaid and insurance from my job. Billing made an error and billed Medicaid first when they should always be billed as secondary when there's commercial insurance involved. Medicaid paid at first but then took the money back, they never billed my primary insurance and that's why the account got sent to collections. They said they would speak to the CA and let them know to discontinue collection activities and close the account. I'll follow up just to make sure but made sure to record the call myself and wrote down what was said and who I spoke to. If the CA doesn't listen I'll file a dispute and cite what the billing company told me. Just glad this got sorted out and I didn't have to pay $620

[Anonymous]

its just listed as cosmetic for a broken hand

[RobertEG]

If you ultimately get the debt paid via insurance, then the new National Consumer Assistance Plan implemented by the big-3 CRAs can be used to get the collection deleted.

That eliminates need for any other process to remove the collection.

The necessary showing is that it was actually paid by medical insurance, and not simply that you had insurance.