re: Medical billing nightmares: anybody want to share stories?

quote:

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I fought it for about 6 months but finally just caved and paid the bill when the hospital started threatening to call a collections agency.

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The whole industry feels like such a sham and it feels like you have no other choice than to do what you're told. They can basically add a charge for anything, label it in their internal code, and how can you argue if that service was provided or not?

We had so many instances like this in a 24 month period that I began to fight back a bit. We'd take our child to the doctor regularly because she was quite ill and then one day got a call from a collections agency about 6 months later. Turns out, we were not receiving the bills from the hospital/doctor for whatever reason. We assumed that most of them were being covered by insurance. Once I got the first call, I started calling around to every medical facility I visited and it was such a screwed up web of issues from our insurance company and the facilities that was completely out of my control.

The facilities said they tried calling me and mailing us letters "multiple" times to tell us these bills were past due but I never received a single one. I checked cell phone records, etc. to make sure they weren't calling my wife and nothing. They are very quick to send to collections and my credit is absolutely spotless. I have never avoided paying any bill or even a single day late in my life due to an "OCD" like focus on my finances.

I started telling them to provide me with their records of mailing/calling me or I would look into taking them to court for sending me to collections and potentially having my credit affected. (It never was because I paid everything immediately once I got the first call.)

Now, I literally call my insurance company and then also the facility a week or so after anyone in my family has a medical visit to make sure everything is in the right hands, etc. Even then, how do I know if my insurance company is covering everything it is supposed to cover, etc.??

It's ridiculous.