So, I had a $40,000 hospital bill. It was all paid but about $28. I would go round and round about this with the hospital. They said I would have to talk to the insurance company. The insurance company said this is for not getting pre-certification, that it should have been paid, and that they were sending it back upstairs to be re-submitted. This happened two or three times, over many months. Now I find it has been turned over to a collection agency. My first thought is to just pay it, although that will annoy me. What is the best way to handle this?
Quit farting around and pay it already.
Sorry, that sounds harsh. Have you looked over the bill? This sounds like something was “not allowable” or part of some kind of deductible. I think you could easily waste $28 of your own time trying to figure out what happened, and it would be cheaper and easier just to pay it.
Maybe I’m missing something. I assumed you meant $28,000, until I got to the “just pay it, although this will annoy me” part, as 28 grand seems like more than a trivial annoyance. If you are complaining about your insurance welching on $28 out of a $40,000 tab, I wish I had your problems. I understand how annoying this could be on principle ("hey, it was only $28, but it could have just as easily been $2,000), but I’d say on a scale of 1 to 100 your insurance horror story is about a 1.7…
Wouldn’t paying it now be an admission of guilt, so to speak, and put a bad mark on their credit report? Would disputing it and telling them the insurance was supposed to pay it be any better?
I don’t think you ever have to pay a collection agency. I’d write the hospital a check for $28, tell the collection agency to validate the debt, and then don’t worry about it.
Since the OP is seeking advice, this is better suited for IMHO than GQ.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I’ve been guilty of being lazy about paying medical bills…the one time it went to collections it was for something stupid like, $3. They didn’t pursue it though and it hasn’t shown up on my credit report.
I agree that sending the hospital the $28 check is a good idea though.
Pay the collection agency, they’re the ones who will put the black mark on your credit report if you don’t pay. If you send the money to the hospital you risk a huge mix up and the collection company will keep billing you. The hospital won’t bill you again for this.
Seriously, if my insurance company didn’t pay $28 of a $40K bill I would be jumping for joy. It’s not even worth questioning.
I am not complaining about what insurance did and did not cover. I have already paid deductibles and not covered expenses. Even that was difficult because the hospital just sends a bill and says “Just pay this. We know what we are doing.” Once I am convinced that what they say I owe I do owe, I pay it. That is not the case here. Both the hospital and my insurance company seem to be saying to me that this bill is not my responsibility and/or should be covered. But they just keep going back and forth. One thing that is really unbelievable is that even if my insurance is supposed to pay something, and does not, it is my responsibility. Seems to me that the hospital’s only recourse should be against the insurance company. Let’s face it, hospitals make money hand over fist and do not need some special carve out that allows them to go after me if my insurance does not do what they are required.
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credit reports do not work that way
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I have the same situation but it is not at the collection agency stage yet. The billing company for the doctor says I owe $103 for a physical. My physicals are 100% covered by insurance. I actually had a conference call between the billing company and the insurance rep with the rep explaining to the billing company why I didn’t owe anything. They agreed, and then a month later I get a statement from the billing company saying I owe $103. WTF. It is now, again, going back and force between the two. I could easily pay the $103 but it is the principle of the thing. I DON’T owe it.
This is the worst advice. Paying the collection agency may get them off your back, but it won’t solve the problem with the hospital. If the hospital says the OP doesn’t owe it and the insurance company is saying the OP doesn’t owe it, not paying it won’t matter. The account likely got caught up in a batch that was old enough to go to the collection agency without anyone looking to see if there was any reason not to send them. Also, if the insurance does end up paying, it’s going to screw things up with the hospital, as far as their accounting goes. If worse comes to worst, the OP can pay the hospital, fax the receipt to the collection agency to close that account, and get a refund if the insurance does pay.
As far as the mechanics go, I thought that any amount owed was treated as an account receivable. Normally what happens (AFAIK) is the owner of the receivable sells it to the collection agency at a discount. IOW, they transfer the right to collect on the debt to the agency and no longer have an interest in the debt since they have in fact been paid by the agency.
There is no problem with the hospital anymore, they transferred the debt to the collection agency. The insurance is not likely to pay at this point and if they do the worst thing that can happen is that the hospital sends the payment back as not owed or the OP could get a credit on her hospital account. That will be the hospital’s accounting problem and they can fix it or ignore it.
Depending on the size of the hospital and collection agency, sending the payment to the hospital and expecting them to straighten it out with the collection agency could take a long time and many phone calls and letters.
not neccisarily accurate - some collection agencies act as “agents” for the original debt holder - they get a cut of anything collected, but the debt itself is still owned by the original.
You’re complaining about a $28.00 bill out of $40,000? Sheesh!!
Pay it, or you could end up in jail, i.e., pseudo debtor’s prison. Collection agencies are taking a new approach where they investigate your history to find an old address. They then send the collection notice to the old address (several times) knowing you don’t live there. The evidence of not responding is then taken to court by the collection agency, and when you don’t show up, a bench warrant is issued by the court. At some point you will be caught, arrest, go to jail and forfeit your bail. The collection agency will get its blood money from the bail money and be satisfied. You, on the other hand, will have all sorts of legal bills and an arrest record, even when it’s all straightened out.
So says the Consumer Reports blog and backed up by the ACLU.
Where do you want your bologna sandwich on white delivered?
While I don’t doubt that this happens in some jurisdictions, that’s not how it normally works. In a civil proceeding, if you don’t show up the worst that will usually happen is that the court will issue a default judgment. It’s then up to the plaintiff to enforce that judgment - a process that can be tedious and costly.
For anything official, even a parking ticket you don’t pay, courts will issue bench warrants. That happened to me once but even in that instance the cops couldn’t be bothered with arresting me. They just told me to get it taken care of so they wouldn’t have to be bothered again.
Thanks for that detailed explanation 
It’s not uncommon for hospitals to send things to collections by mistake. Some hospitals just a large batch where everything over x months or years old are sent to the CA. It’s not intentional, it just happens. I myself found a very old bill on my credit that had been paid by my insurance years ago. The provider (a largish medical clinic) admitted that it shouldn’t have gone to collections, but it went because, for whatever reason, payment had been received after the account had been sent out, and the clinic had never bothered to let the CA know.
If you’ll re-read what I wrote, I told the OP to get a paid in full receipt from the hospital to fax to the collection agency him/herself. If you pay the collection agency knowing that the hospital may well be paid by the insurance company, you’ll create a bigger mess. Better to just pay the hospital and get a refund.
You’re concerned about a $28.00 copay on a $40K bill?
Maybe we need a Special Debtors Prison.