Situation: OC (in hospital) never received insurance card from hospital. OC notifies me of this 2 days before turning over to CA. CA (a viciously litigatious one I might add) sends me first notice. I send card and validation letter to OC. Then I immediately send a DV notice to CA. OC has not responded but it has only been 3 weeks. CA in the meantime, has sent me a second letter - no mention of the validation request but a threat of legal action (ie. We have begun reviewing your account for the purposes of filing suit.) This in not a bill I owe - in the sense that it was not properly billed to my insurance (which will cover it 100%). As soon as I was notified by the OC, I took proper action. Would an ITS letter to the CA be appropriate? They have not yet reported it to my CR - but I want to take a strong stand as this agent is well known to go for judgments.
Focus your efforts on the OC. Emphasize that their billing of your insurance company was done in an erroneous manner, and that your insurance stands ready to pay the claim as soon as they bill correctly. Work with your insurance company to also try to get the correct amount paid. Once it is paid, if they don't cooperate in calling the account back from the CA, or in getting the CA to remove the TL, point out that the delay in payment was due to their negligence in submitting incorrect billing to the insurance company. If they are in-network, and under contract to your insurance, you can also put pressure on them from that side. Your position is that it is their responsibility to submit correct billing invoices, whether to your insurance, or to you as a co-payer. Any collection TLs reported are erroneous if payment is delayed due to their own errors. If they have been paid, they have little to gain, and a lot to lose, from trying to maintain a negative tradeline against you, when their own invoices show correction of billing errors, followed by payment in full.
That is my intention because I can then get it deleted. But as they have now added 2 more violations, I really want the damages ($6K total). I ended up sending them notice that they failed to validate properly and neglected to pay their damages and added to it the violation of failing to report it disputed. Noticed them that I would turn it over to my attorney and gave them 7 days. In the mean time, I've already mailed the documentation to my atty so we'll be ready.
