Is it legal for a CA to put a collection on someone's credit if the person asked for a itemized bill? I finally recieved an itemized bill 8 months after a hospital visit. After being double billed I asked for a corrected and itemized bill. As soon as I recieved to new bill, I began paying monthly. Little did I know, it was on my credit as a collection. Can they put it on my credit as a collection if I am paying monthly? I was told by one of their employees that the collection on my credit would be REMOVED if it were paid in full. The supervisor a week later said the employee never said that, and that it would be marked as paid. I am a mess about this, help!
Is this a bill for hospital services, or for physician services? Were the parties billing "in network" and covered by contracts with your insurance company? What was the nature of the error? Was the insurance claim processed correctly? Was the erroneous bill sent to collection, or the corrected bill? How long after you received it was it sent to collections? How long after finally receiving a corrected bill did you make payment arrangements? Were the payment arrangements made with the hospital, or with the CA? If the hospital billing screwed up, and they are further screwing up by damaging your credit, you have at least a moral lever to force removal, regardless of your effective legal rights. What is "legal" depends on what you let them get away with, and your remedies are not limited to court. Nor are you limited to dealing with the billing supervisor, or the CA, and if he doesn't solve it, his exit, or a solution imposed from above still solves your problem. You do this by going over the head of the billing department or CA, to the hospital administrator, or the physicians who provided your services, if that is what the bill is for. Those are the ones who would have to deal with a legal case, not the CA or some billing supervisor, and the CA and billing department work for them, not the other way around. To get the most leverage, remove the issue of any outstanding amount due, by paying it directly to the hospital, and take the position that the hospital has a legal obligation to present a correct and accurate bill for payment before sending a bill to collections, and that any erroneous bill sent to collections was sent in error. Add to this any payment plan they agreed to on the finally corrected bill, along with the billing clerk's representation that the negative mark would be removed after payment. The picture you are painting is one where you have acted in good faith, questioning an erroneous bill, and paying it when it was corrected, yet their actions resulting from their original error have damaged you. They sent to collections, and posted a negative tradeline on your credit reports, an erroneous bill that was not due and collectible, despite your attempts to get the matter rectified. They should either be ethical enough to do the right thing, or be too embarrassed to risk or want this to go to court. If your first clear letter outlining the facts does not get results, move to "nutcase" in your second letter, referring to their posting of an "erroneous and fraudulent" collection account on your reports. Be sure to get paper copies of your credit reports now showing this erroneous tradeline. With no amount due, what would you do in their position? It would be clear that you would have every reason to be pissed, and that their own erroneous and corrected bills document your case. If they want to play games, the game is poker, or MAD, with no upside for them. If you want to bring additional pressure, and your personal physician also treated you and has hospital privileges there, send him a letter outlining the problems you are having, and ask what other hospitals he has privileges at. If the hospital is in network, bring pressure thru your insurance company.
