(For the long-readers) It really is becoming an Idiocracy out there....

[stangin4lyfe]

I filed the disputes this morning, and of course have yet to hear back from the collection agency. However I actually got to a real person with Radiology Associates billing dept just a short while ago...I was cool and professional about it, didn't raise my voice or fly off the handle, I went through the whole thing, told her all about the conversation I had with the BCBS rep last night, they confirmed that it had been paid, and also had very detailed notes including a name and phone for the person they spoke with when the payment was made, etc. However the young lady was immediately on the defensive, said her records show it delinquent, that they never had insurance information for me, and that there are no notes anywhere in their records of anyone speaking with my insurance company or anyone else.

I sat and quietly listened to her BS...then calmly said...are you finished? I told her, I really don't care what your notes say or don't say....if the way you do business alone is any indication, I'd expect nothing less than total shit notes like you are describing. What I'm telling you is that MY insurance company does have notes....very detailed notes....notes that confirm the timing when this was covered....the same notes that have already been faxed to my legal council to discuss the compensation I'll be seeking from your organization as a result of this fiasco.....your mistake, not mine! Therefore I suggest you quit trying to pick an argument with me, and instead get on the horn with my insurance company to confirm what we already know, so that you people can begin cleaning up this mess....so that we can get on to the next business, which will be discussing how your organization will be compensating me for a very well documented error on your behalf.

She just sat there for a couple seconds, and then said I'm sorry sir....can I put you on hold for a couple mins? I said certainly...not a problem. She put me on hold for about 3-4 minutes, then came back...was VERY apologetic, asked for the contact information for the insurance rep and then said, okay I'm going to need to have my supervisor call you back shortly...is that okay?

Great move.
Keep us posted!

[The King]

My company is actually self-insured...they simply use BCBS to process all the claims. We've been with them about 6-7 years now, and I've never had any issues with things not being covered, but our company does keep them on a pretty tight leash with this crap....and I suppose BCBS maybe doesn't care as much since they are spending someone else's money.

Before we were with BCBS they used Aetna, and they were awful! Similar to described above, there were a lot of healthcare providers that would literally turn people away if they had Aetna. However that only lasted a couple years before they got the boot.

It looks like my health insurance provider typically reimburses roughly 2/3 of the billed charges on office visits. BCBS, back when I had them, reimbursed about 50% of billed charges. It will be interesting (or not) to see what happens after obammycare fully kicks in.

[talisman]

I filed the disputes this morning, and of course have yet to hear back from the collection agency. However I actually got to a real person with Radiology Associates billing dept just a short while ago...I was cool and professional about it, didn't raise my voice or fly off the handle, I went through the whole thing, told her all about the conversation I had with the BCBS rep last night, they confirmed that it had been paid, and also had very detailed notes including a name and phone for the person they spoke with when the payment was made, etc. However the young lady was immediately on the defensive, said her records show it delinquent, that they never had insurance information for me, and that there are no notes anywhere in their records of anyone speaking with my insurance company or anyone else.

I sat and quietly listened to her BS...then calmly said...are you finished? I told her, I really don't care what your notes say or don't say....if the way you do business alone is any indication, I'd expect nothing less than total shit notes like you are describing. What I'm telling you is that MY insurance company does have notes....very detailed notes....notes that confirm the timing when this was covered....the same notes that have already been faxed to my legal council to discuss the compensation I'll be seeking from your organization as a result of this fiasco.....your mistake, not mine! Therefore I suggest you quit trying to pick an argument with me, and instead get on the horn with my insurance company to confirm what we already know, so that you people can begin cleaning up this mess....so that we can get on to the next business, which will be discussing how your organization will be compensating me for a very well documented error on your behalf.

She just sat there for a couple seconds, and then said I'm sorry sir....can I put you on hold for a couple mins? I said certainly...not a problem. She put me on hold for about 3-4 minutes, then came back...was VERY apologetic, asked for the contact information for the insurance rep and then said, okay I'm going to need to have my supervisor call you back shortly...is that okay?

hahaha, be sure to keep this thread updated. I'm interested to see what happens.

[kingjason]

Exact same thing and outcome happened to me whenever I had surgery on my elbow.
If definately took some sweet talking though!

It's called balance billing and holy fuck believe or not is actually illegal in some states. The mother fuckers take the negotiated rate and then bill you later for whatever the hell they want.

[Pro88LX]

I filed the disputes this morning, and of course have yet to hear back from the collection agency. However I actually got to a real person with Radiology Associates billing dept just a short while ago...I was cool and professional about it, didn't raise my voice or fly off the handle, I went through the whole thing, told her all about the conversation I had with the BCBS rep last night, they confirmed that it had been paid, and also had very detailed notes including a name and phone for the person they spoke with when the payment was made, etc. However the young lady was immediately on the defensive, said her records show it delinquent, that they never had insurance information for me, and that there are no notes anywhere in their records of anyone speaking with my insurance company or anyone else.

I sat and quietly listened to her BS...then calmly said...are you finished? I told her, I really don't care what your notes say or don't say....if the way you do business alone is any indication, I'd expect nothing less than total shit notes like you are describing. What I'm telling you is that MY insurance company does have notes....very detailed notes....notes that confirm the timing when this was covered....the same notes that have already been faxed to my legal council to discuss the compensation I'll be seeking from your organization as a result of this fiasco.....your mistake, not mine! Therefore I suggest you quit trying to pick an argument with me, and instead get on the horn with my insurance company to confirm what we already know, so that you people can begin cleaning up this mess....so that we can get on to the next business, which will be discussing how your organization will be compensating me for a very well documented error on your behalf.

She just sat there for a couple seconds, and then said I'm sorry sir....can I put you on hold for a couple mins? I said certainly...not a problem. She put me on hold for about 3-4 minutes, then came back...was VERY apologetic, asked for the contact information for the insurance rep and then said, okay I'm going to need to have my supervisor call you back shortly...is that okay?

nice

[Forever_frost]

I'm having something similar going on. My son had an ER visit in June and Tricare covered it, we paid the rest of the bill and the copay and thought things were good. A month later, we start getting a bill a month for the full cost of the ER visit. Every time we call the company, they have nothing in their notes about Tricare and a week or so ago we got a "Delinquent Bill" notification from the jerkoffs.

Wife calls in and they say "Oh, I'm not seeing notification of insurance here." So my wife asks for a supervisor, gives the supe the name of the people who took the info last time and demands them to put her on a conference call with Tricare. 20 minutes later, they are apologizing and saying it's being 'researched.' Fucking idiots

[AdRock]

I challenge anyone in this thread to call their primary care physician and ask what something costs. You won't ever get a straight answer. Why? Because nobody knows anymore. What I imagine happens is the doctors bill the insurance whatever they feel like is an acceptable amount, and then the insurance company will probably counter-offer a certain compensation they think is reasonable beyond your co-pay, and they settle on a number. It's all bullshit, smoke, and mirrors.

I actually did this and got an answer from both my PCP and my neurologist. 9 times out of 10 the cash cost for the doctors visit itself isn't a shitload more than the copay is. I pay a $20 copay for my PC and my neuro. When I didn't have ins. my cost was $40 for my PCP and $45 for my neuro. I also have to get several MRI scans every year. I thought they were going to cost a fortune without ins. But to my surprise it was only $350 for all the different scans.

So the doctors will usually work with you on the price if you ask them about it and let them know it won't be going through the ins.

[Ratt]

I actually did this and got an answer from both my PCP and my neurologist. 9 times out of 10 the cash cost for the doctors visit itself isn't a shitload more than the copay is. I pay a $20 copay for my PC and my neuro. When I didn't have ins. my cost was $40 for my PCP and $45 for my neuro. I also have to get several MRI scans every year. I thought they were going to cost a fortune without ins. But to my surprise it was only $350 for all the different scans.

So the doctors will usually work with you on the price if you ask them about it and let them know it won't be going through the ins.

I think next time I go to my PCP I'm going to tell them that I won't be going through my insurance company for the visit and see what they say. I'll bet there's not a single person that goes to my doc that doesn't have/use insurance, and they probably wouldn't know what to do if someone told them that they wanted to forego the insurance route and just pay cash. Poor little (hot as hell) Latina girl behind the counter would probably throw up from how fast her head would spin.

[STANGGT40]

So if they do this systematically, isn't it possible that they are double dipping? IE, selling debts that are already paid off?

I think that's exactly what they do. I've gone through this exact same thing multiple times, from various times that Amy has been to those places...it's always a battle! It usually takes tons of phone calls over weeks, to get it resolved. ...and the first time it's "resolved", nothing will be done and you'll have to go through everything again. If you're lucky, the second round will get it fixed. The tough part is dealing with a collection agency that doesn't care that it was already paid and the original place doesn't have anyone intelligent enough to call the collection company and relay the correct info...probably because they would have to refund the collection company the money they paid them. I really don't know if it's just a huge scam or a bunch of imbeciles that don't know what they're doing. On a similar subject, I had bills come in, when my son was born, from people I've never heard of...I think they look up births and send bills, knowing that there's so much going on that they might get paid. I called one, that was for $600, and they immediately tried to settle for $65...that was just from me asking what they did. After about 15 minutes on the phone, they dropped the charge. I still have no clue what it was for. I called the hospital, and they said that they deal with that company but couldn't tell me what they would have done to justify any charges to me...seems like a huge scam.

[bucky]

And this is why I never go to the doctor unless it's an absolute emergency. I'm fine paying my ER co-pay once every couple of years or a Doc-in-the-box co-pay every six months or so.

This right here. I'm never going to a doctor again unless i have an organ falling out and blood pooling under me. 5 months after my motorcycle wreck, i'm still getting bills from every doctor,radiologist, and there fucking mistress. It's like wait we forgot to charge him for this paper clip in his file...lets shoot him another bill for $9. Fuck the healthcare industry, i hope they all burn in hell.

[Rreemo]

Thought I'd give an update here....

Got an attorney through my group legal plan, met with him late last week.

The first thing he wanted to let me know was that they had blatantly violated my rights through what is called the "Fair Credit Reporting Act", with the way that they reported this....according to the law, the agency can only report the debt in the same manner as it was billed/presented to the person who owes the debt. In this situation there was a single statement with a total of $138 (it included 4 individual line items of service), if this was indeed a real debt they can only report it in the same manner in which it was originally invoiced....so in this case, 1-item totaling $138. However, they did not do this....instead, they reported each of the 4 individual line items within the statement separately on my credit report....so instead of a single item in collections for $138, it shows up as 1-item for $40, 1 for $33, 1 for $35, and 1 for $30....and they entered them all on the same date. He said regardless of everything else, this is a violation that they can and very likely will be fined for...$1000 per offense, and they have 4 here....he's already taken the necessary steps to report it. He gave me an analogy....it would be like someone defaulting on their car loan, but instead of the lender reporting it as the balance on the car, reporting everything individually like the engine for an amount, the transmission for another amount, the tires for another amount, etc, etc....and by law they cannot do it that way.

Another big item (as I understood it) is that not only were they paid, but the way in-which it was funded was through a lump sum payment to a billing processor who is a single POC to the insurance that serves as a liaison representing the hospital and it's entities (them being one of the entities), and by signing up to have their billing handled in this way through this particular hospital, they must also deal directly with that firm for any disputed charges...they can only go directly to the person who is responsible for the debt once they have confirmed that the overall payment was never made.....and you guessed it....they didn't do this either! Likely another fine on them.

Sorry this is getting long so I'll try to summarize here for now....there has already been a meeting with one of their representatives and my attorney...they've been advised of where they broke the law and how they violated my rights....they are doing some MAJOR back-peddling at this moment. Ironically, someone from their office called me direct this morning...I refused to speak with him...told him it's too bad they didn't make one of those promised return calls before I sought legal counsel.....anything that needs to be said now goes to my attorney only, gave him the number and hung up on him. Attorney told me this is an open & shut case, however he can only represent me in getting it cleared, if I decide to seek compensation further I will need to file a lawsuit on my own, and my group plan does not cover that....so they can only make some recommendations for me, and give me a referral to another law firm. He said at this point I am well within boundaries to seek some compensation from them, but if it's just a matter of principal for me, to know that they are very likely going to be fined...he said that the states attorney general's office usually doesn't take these lightly b/c they know that they are generally up/shut and easy money.

[SEB]

Get em!

[talisman]

Go for it dude. I have absolutely no sympathy for scavenger debt collectors.

[racrguy]

Go for it dude. I have absolutely no sympathy for scavenger debt collectors.

This. Not only would I get 'em fined out the ass, but I'd try to get every dime I could, on principle alone. Just think of how many people they've done it to before.