Hello, I wrote this letter to send to OC. Please tell me what you think? Thanks, Jane Our child was a patient in the E.R. at hospital on (date). From the very beginning this account has been mishandled by (hospital name) billing dept. We have continually received the same incorrect bill for $400.00 long after hospital received the EOB from our insurance company. Numerous calls have be made by Jane to hospital billing dept trying to get this straightened out to no avail. In looking at our EOB, we see that hospital billed our insurance for $619.83. Provider responsibility is $320.83. The balance of $ 299.00 was applied to our deductible. Our first question obviously is where did hospital get the amount of $ 400.00 that we've been billed for repeatedly? In looking at our EOB it shows that our insurance company received the bill from hospital for our child on 4/5/03 and it was processed on 4/21/03. So Ms. Supervisor, why was this bill sent on to an outside collection agency AFTER hospital received the EOB. For an amount that the hospital knew or should have known was wrong?. We have never received a correct bill showing the true amount that is our responsibility. Why was this bill sent out to outside collection agency for $400.00 when hospital knew or should have known this was in error when they sent it out to the collection agency? This is in clear violation of the credit reporting laws that mandate â??correct reporting at all times.â? When hospital sent that acct out to collections for $400 it did so with the knowledge that the account amount was wrong. This is an unacceptable case of negligence and total disregard for our credit and the damage that has been done to that credit and a clear disregard for the Credit Reporting Laws and our rights under those laws. As I said before, I have made numerous calls to your billing dept in an attempt to get the records corrected. Late last year, November or December I phoned again the billing dept and was told by the employees that yes, you only owe $299.00, not $400.00. When I told this person that it was hospital's responsibility to report correctly and asked her to correct this amount with the collection agency she said there was nothing she or the billing dept could do about it. I said, yes, you could take the acct back from the collection agency and fix your mistake. She said no, we couldnâ??t do that. I disagreed of course, since I know that hospital can, in fact, do just that. Nevertheless, I discovered that the account was, in fact, pulled from the original collection agency it was sent to which was â??NCOâ? after my conversation with the hospitalâ??s billing clerk mentioned above. Great, I thought. hospital is finally going to fix this and follow the credit reporting laws. Wrong. The same day hospital pulled the account from â??NCOâ? it promptly sent it out to another collection agency, â??ATTENTION LLCâ?, for $400.00. Another clear violation of the credit reporting laws. Then recently I discovered that hospital had added themselves to husbandâ??s TransUnion credit report for $400.00. Another violation. This is just unbelievable. Do you have any understanding of the fair credit-reporting act? Hospital has shown nothing but complete and utter disregard for our rights and the FCRA and we will not hesitate to take legal action to remedy this situation and sue for all damages. This situation, caused by hospital's negligence has caused us great stress. As you will recall, Ms. Supervisor, we exchanged several e-mails on May 10th, 2004 in which you clearly state that we do not owe $400, only $299 yet you have done nothing at all about correcting with the collection agency or the credit bureaus. More violations. Well, Ms. Supervisor, enough is enough. Be further advised that hospital has 5 days from receipt of this letter to delete all references from any and all credit bureaus and to instruct ATTENTION LLC to remove all references to my and my husbandâ??s credit reports. In addition, I feel the true and correct balance we do have of $299.00 should be forgiven as a sign of goodwill on your part. If this is not done, our next step will be to file complaints with the FTC, AG, BBB, Dept of Corp, and all other State and Federal Agencies appropriate to this matter. We have already filed, as I mentioned in one of my e-mails to you, a formal complaint against your billing practices with our Ins. Co. We will, without hesitation, also file immediately upon the 6th day after receipt of this letter a lawsuit against you personally, your CEO, and all Does 1-100 if this matter goes unresolved. We will await your reply. Sincerely, DW&DH
Who do you expect to read this letter? The billing supervisor? She'd as soon toss it in the trash and pretend it never arrived. Keep letter short and focused on the bill never agreeing with the insurance EOB, in breach of their contract with your insurance company, and that the billing supervisor has acknowledged this, yet failed to provide a correct bill. List what you want, in order to pay the account for the correct amount: 1) a correct bill consistent with your EOB from your insurance company. 2) account pulled back from CA. 3) all negative account information removed from your credit reports. Attach a chronological list of summarized contacts by date, to establish that they knew, or should have known, early, that there was an error. Note who you talked to, by phone or e-mail, etc. Use it to reference e-mails from supervisor acknowledging error. Include copies of e-mails. Include copy of EOB. Sum up at end of the letter that this has gone on long enough, and their billing department has still been unable to send a correct and accurate bill. Mark "cc: <your insurance company> cc: < your state's insurance commissioner>" at the bottom. Send copies of whole pack with your complaint letters to them. Send to hospital administrator, by name, CRRR. Keep it polite but direct in this letter. If they still refuse to act, you need to find who at your insurance company handles their contract enforcement.
Jane, I couldn't agree more. You did ask for feedback, so I'm going to give it. I say just to call this draft #1 of your letter. I bet it felt good to get it all out. Now get out a red pen and delete 2/3 of it. Just stick to the facts, and if you want to include the transcript of prior contacts that might be a nice touch. Leave he/said she/said out of the cover letter. Make the cover letter very short. State each thing only one time. Do not repeat. The best way to get action is SHORT! Send it back here and we can help more. Good luck.
At this point you don't even have anyone willing to bill you for the correct amount, nor do you know how long this state of affairs will continue. If when the dust settles, and someone with some authority actually wants the problem to go away, that might be an equitable settlement, but for now force all parties to meet their contractual obligations, and clean up the mess. That is hard enough, even though it is right, legal, moral, ethical, and proper. It weakens your position if it appears that you are just trying to get out of paying what you owe. The more serious issue here is not the difference between $299 and $400, but that they messed up, knew it, and are legally obligated to fix it, including all negative credit reporting. When they take the position that they know it should be $299, but its $400 and there is nothing they can do, they have crossed a line.
