I have a question re: some medical bills that have gone to collections 4 in total. They are reporting as "Medical" and the hospital is named where I received services. I paid the bills via the CA a few years back. Can I dispute them via the Hippa laws? I read some of the older posts and I am not sure what to do if I have paid the CA and not the OC. Any advice re: the matter would be great. I am still pretty new to this. Thanks, MBB
As long as they don't quote the actual procedures or medicines prescribed they don't have a lot to worry about. If they were several years old and before the time that HIPPA was passed then the new law probaby wouldn't apply unless they are still reporting the unlawful information.
Thanks for your reply cap1sucks. The medical bills occurred in 2003. Do you know of a better way to tackle the negatives to have them removed? I read somewhere here that if medical items are paid that they have to remove it from your CR. Is this true or was this just poor advice? Or maybe I just misunderstood the post. Thanks again, MBB
I don't know of any such law or clause in any law. If there is I have never heard of it. Also I fail to see why it should be any different than any other type of listing. I don't know of any other than disputing them with the credit bureaus unless you can negotiate that one way or another.
When you paid them, did you make sure they were actually owed? For example, if you were covered by insurance, and in particular, if the provider was "in-network", there may have been agreed upon rates of payment for services, due to contracts between the insurer and the provider. If so, providers normally discount what they charge based on an agreed schedule, to arrive at what the insurer and you will pay. Your EOB should show any actual remaining amount due from you. If the provider messed up the claim, the amount you were billed could be far higher than what you were obligated for under the terms of your insurance. In addition, if an in-network provider failed to submit a claim in a timely manner, the contract often calls for the full amount to be not due from either the insurer or the patient. Often when these types of errors happen, the provider will attempt to collect from the patient anyway, resulting in accounts sent to collection that are either mostly, or completely, not owed by the patient. Unless you catch these errors, and bring in the insurer to enforce their agreement, you may end up paying money you don't even owe, and on top of that get a credit black mark for paying it thru the CA. If they were not owed, or even partly not owed, for the above reasons, you might use that to get the item removed from your reports, and possibly even some money back.
The above was his question and it seemed to me that he was referring to getting it removed through disputes with the credit bureaus. Now then, most such disputes as you describe require a HIPPA audit by a qualified auditor. They have to go through the policy and the charges made by the hospital with a fine tooth comb to catch those errors which are prevalent in most such claims. Such an audit costs big bucks. How does he do it without going through all of that.
