I have a medical collection posted in July 2021, for ~$1100, reporting to all 3 (removed by Exp). I was unaware of this collection until mid-2022, when I happened to check my credit reports. I did not recall ever receiving a bill. I certainly was never contacted by a CA about it.
I did go to the hospital in 2021. I am covered by Medicare, so my only responsibility is my deductible. They are in-network with my provider, so they are restricted by federal law from balance-billing anything my provider declines. In any case, I supplied the correct billing info. Everyone else at the hospital got paid. Everything that I knew about was covered, so I was pretty shocked to see a collection.
Apparently I did get a bill. It would've arrived in the middle of Texas's infamous weeklong power grid near-failure, which would explain why I don't remember it (I was busy trying to stay warm and fed). It says that their claim was denied because no record of account was found. It doesn't even say what service they were billing for. However, they had access to that information, just like all the other providers who did get paid. That one bill is the only record. They made no other contact. Apparently, instead of double-checking their own mistake, they just blithely, 14 days later (!), sent it to a medical CA, who just blithely reported it at the earliest possible date. To this day I have never heard from the CA. Of course, when I learned of the problem, months later, it was too late to re-file the claim.
At the moment I'm not in a position to settle this. Frankly, I don't feel I should have to. The incorrect insurance claim was their own error. They compounded the error by not notifying me it was going to collection, depriving me of the opportunity to help them rectify it. Any suggestions about the possibility of getting it removed?
