I’ve just received a statement from an MD I haven’t seen in a very long time. The statement is for $15.00 and is supposedly my co-pay from an office visit on August 22, 2003. I’ve heard of snail mail, but this is ridiculous. This is the one and only statement I’ve received from this MD during the 3+ years that have elapsed since the alleged office visit.
I have no way of knowing if I really owe this $15.00 or not; it is certainly not worth the trouble it would be to research it. My impulse is to simply ignore the statement.
Someone at the office was probably auditing the last few years figures and sent out a bunch of those statements. They are trolling for easy money. Ignore it until you get another one, then send a letter back saying you won’t pay such a late bill. It will cost them much more to try to collect than it is worth.
I realize you don’t want to pay because of the principle of the thing, but I currently have something showing up on my credit report for $30 when I had my son almost 3 years ago. It’s not worth it trying to sort it out and get it off your report if you can stop it now.
I’m not sure it’s the principle of the thing or not. However, it smacks of extortion inasmuch as I can’t prove I don’t owe it and I doubt they can prove I do. I’ve always just routinely paid the co-pay on the spot; in fact, it is usually required by a doctor’s office. Most of them have a sign to that effect posted by the check in window. If it shows up on my credit report, I’ll demand they prove I do owe it; if I do, I’ll pay it.
Do you know/remember the doctor’s policy on billing? My PCP does not bill. If there is a copay, they expect it at the time services are rendered. At my office (veterinarian) there is no billing. Over 99% of all services are paid for before the client walks out the door. In fact, I do not even have the forms/etc to send a bill. So, if someone forgets their money, they are told to pay asap. No payment in 30 days results in the debt being sent to a collection service.
I’d recommend you try to resolve it before then. Twice in my career I’ve had people frantically trying to get in touch with me via my answering service because of prior bad debts. In a situation like that, I tell the consumer that I will not help; they can deal with the collection agency. Who knows when/if you will find yourself in a situation where a clean credit report would be handy?
You’d think, wouldn’t you? I quit one doctor because of her billing practices, and whoever I spoke to there who always assumed I was some lying lowlife trying to get out of an honest debt. Hey, lady, don’t tell me “Well, the computer says you owe . . .” as if that’s the Holy Grail of credibility. I work in a software company. Garbage in, garbage out.
It doesnt matter that it would cost them more to try to collect than to just let it go. Businesses that are owed money (or in this case, believe that they are owed money even if it isnt so) just send it all to collections because legally they have to treat everyone the same. If someone who owed them more than that found out they were just letting your debt go they could take them to court which would cost a lot more than just trying to collect your debt, even if they were not found at fault or anything. I would call them and find out why they sent the bill and ask if they will waive it. If you ask they probably will, if you assume they should and don’t say anything they will not hesitate to send your account to collections.
I got billed some co-pay for my glucometer for gestational diabetes about 2 years after the fact and left a message for the place where the bill came from accusing them of running a scam. I never heard another thing about it. I would advise this route if pressed.
I’m on the other side; I got a check back from a $10 co-pay for a hospital from at least a year ago. It was the walk-in clinic and I’m pretty sure I was supposed to pay, but I went ahead and cashed that puppy anyway.
Your medical records are supposed to be kept for a significant period of years. If you have other statements, explanations of benefits, etc. from that time period you could call your insurance company and verify they have records from that date of service. If you use credit cards to pay for these things, typically you can request back statements to be re-printed and sent to the house to see if there are charges from that Dr. on the date for the appropriate amount. Basically the research would consist of a couple phone calls or some time on the insurance company/credit card company’s website. $15 isn’t worth that effort, but a derogatory remark on your credit report is.
I always pay cash for co-pays and it’s a cinch I don’t have any receipts from August, 2003. I’ll probably pay it anyway, just as soon as my temper cools down. I just think it is nervy as hell to blithely send a statement for a service that allegedly occurred 3+ years ago as if that is common business practice. In fact, it is sort of on the extortion side, IMHO. YMMV.
Don’t just pay. Call first and tell them that you always pay up front, and they must have forgotten to post your co-pay that day. Chances are high that the biller will just say ok and write it off right then and there, as co-pays are notoriously lost by doctors offices. (I work in medical billing, IT dept though.) Try not to get mad or accuse them of extortion. The person on the other end of the line is only human and will be less inclined to help you out if you’re pissy.
Old charges like that can come up for a variety of reasons, I might guess the “bill statements for this patient” box was unchecked and no one noticed until they did a sweep of low balance patient responsibility open balances, or something like that.
If they insist that they need proof I’d THEN just pay the $15. It’s worth a quick phone call, but not the time it would take to reaearch.
Edit to add: It was probably the orfing computer system that automatically sent the statement, a human probably never saw it to MAKE the decision whether to send it.
Just a quick note from the other side. I started my practice 3 1/2 years ago and have had horrible luck with billers. Each time I hired a new one, they were able to bill from their start date but never seemed to get around to the accounts receivable. Last year I finally found a decent billing service. They transferred all of the current billing to their system, then slowly went through the 250k in accounts receivable to see what could be billed to insurance and what should be written off. It was a HUGE job, that took many man-hours, and many many calls to insurance companies. We had charges listed for the wrong patients, copays for dates when patients were never seen, etc. It was a mess. Almost all of it had to be written off.
For the past year, the billing has been up-to-date, and for the first time, patients are billed regularly. We have finally transferred all 3000 patient records to the new system. We then went through every patient account where the computer indicated that the patient owed money to make sure that there was a visit on that date, and that insurance payments, secondary payments, and write-offs were applied correctly, and that there was an explanation for why the money was owed (ie no record of copayment at the visit time).
Now, I find myself with several thousand dollars of money that patients owe. It is almost all copayments or deductibles that were never billed because of my billing problems. The patients are all aware of the change in my billing over the past year. I was planning to include a letter with each statement, apologizing for the delay in billing, informing the patients of the reasons for the delay (which most are aware of; there were times when patient statements did not go out for 6 months), and advising the patient to call with any questions.
If you had received a letter like this with the statement, would you still be upset? I don’t like to send out bills from so long ago, but my staff and billing service are of the opinion that the work was done, the money is actually owed me, and frankly, I really could use the money. I have very loyal patients and I don’t like to upset them. On the other hand, during my billing problems, several actually asked why they weren’t being billed.
There are a lot of state laws about medical claims. There may well be timely filing issues that they had no legal right to bill you. A quick check of your state website might have the information. Also, contacting you insurance company to see if they can still get you a copy of the EOB might clarify things. It would have your copay and coinsurance.
I wouldn’t presume to speak for LouisB, but that sounds very reasonable to me. I wouldn’t be upset if I received a letter like that with a bill for less than, say, $50. I’d just go ahead and pay it. Now, if it was a large sum of money, that’s a little trickier, I might get upset about that.
Well, actually you have spoken for me and I thank you. A letter of explanation, if there were an explanation, would have soothed my jangled nerves and might even have made me smile. I agree completely, sending a letter explaining the situation is an excellent idea.