Thank you Hedwig, I am beginning to think I am loony. No response to the email to the CEO. I think I need to start drafting my dispute letter. Jlynn, your absolutley right, I think I will send them a letter & request a copy of thier contract, I already have a copy of the fee schedule which this provider had made a copy of also. Thank y'all, hopefully I'll have more news to report soon. Tegleg
Valid points But...... I read what you posted more relating to a situation in that a person is for lack of better words ripped off, things promised never delivered, or services pay for and not received. Did your husband receive good quality services at a time of need? Should this dentist who is a business who works on the same bases has all business not be paid? Did he call your husband and entice him in to his practice? Or did your husband in a time of a dental emergency go to him. I believe that information is more inline of criminal fraud. .
I read your reply with interest, and thank you for giving me food for thought. I find your replies very interesting & it does my brain good to really think & ponder. We will all agree to disagree, if we all thought the same this world would be pretty boring. The way that I see it consumer laws exist to protect the consumer. They were developed for a reason. To afford some protection to the consumer from deceptive buisness practices intentional or unintentional in all aspects of buisness. I do not think there was criminal intent in my case although I cannot say 100% that there wasn't. Do this to several customers like me who don't know enough to fight back & someone would net some hefty funds. But that is 100% speculation on my part. At this point I do not have copies of the billing records so I cannot make an educated guess there. I am not out to rip money out of a dentists hand, in a cooperation as big as this one I really doubt that will occur. The dentist has every right to be paid by the cooperation for his work the problem I have is the corperation expecting me to pay double the amount they originally told me to and telling me to do so after the fact. It was not an emergency procedure, it had been planned for a month and they had plenty of time to give me a accurate estimate. So it is better to rip it out of a consumer's hand instead? And it is not as if I did not pay, I did pay, 3200 just as they asked me to. The quality of the work has no bearing here that is an entirly different scenario, what I have is a billing dispute with the provider (the corperation), I am not in dispute with the dentist himself. If the dentist was somewhat not paid due to the corperations mistake then he should have a beef with the corperation too! The corperation is huge with several offices and contracts with many dentists. My hubby does carpentery work occassionally when he is able to. Recently he got asked to make a work bench for a guy in town. He went to thier place took down measurments, gave them a written estimate, the amount was agreed upon & then he bought the supplies and made the table. A few days later he had the table delivered and discovered that he had mismeasured a length and the table wound up being some inches short. He took the table back and fixed it correctly, out of his pocket because it was his mistake. He did not ask for that money from the buyer because it was his mistake. The buyer paid what he was quoted, and he is not responsible for the mistake. As a result the buyer got a good deal and my hubby learned the hard way not to mismeasure again. If he had measured correctly the first time then he would not have been out the extra money. I can just imagine what would have happened if he had told the buyer he had to pay extra because he made a mistake, or better yet asked him to pay it four monthes later down the road. I am sure that buyer would have laughed all the way to small claims court. Now I need some advil..... Tegleg
Hello:In your state contact the medical board that regulates Dentist and see if there has been any similar complaints against this Dentist. The main problem that I see in the consumer protection info From the Texas Deceptive Trade Act: (a) False, misleading, or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct of any trade or commerce are hereby declared unlawful and are subject to action by the consumer protection division under Sections 17.47, 17.58, 17.60, and 17.61 of this code. this requires intent, you would have to show that this was set up for the soul purpose to take money from you and since you were not required to pay at the time of the service this would be your burden to prove this is a criminal act. hope this helps
Although we are covering many aspects of medical billing and practices here, the basis is a violation of "contract law" here. Teg was quoted a "reasonable estimate" for services, along with an agreed "discount". Per the contract, payment was expected prior to services, and payment was made. AFTER services were rendered, a larger bill was presented, with no basis given as to reason for increase. Per Hedwig's example of auto repair, there was no opportunity given to Teg to "authorize" a higher fee for the services, nor does it appear that "additional services" were required. Short and sweet here; the billing process was screwed up, obviously these two payment methods go through two completely different processes. Teg, you just need to clarify all the numbers, and transactions. It should be fairly simple. As a note, per contract law, you do need to give the dental office the opportunity to "remedy", or correct their mistake prior to further legal action. I would just walk through the events one by one with the billing office, and get this cleared up. Just make sure these are not going on your credit reports, you've worked too hard for those!
And the $3K question is. You paid $3000. For what everyone agrees should be a 25% discount. Now they are billing you $6K. The math is not even adding up exclusive of the discount plan. Also note Teg, once your start writing letters, and you start referencing the TDTPA - you have to give them 60 days to cure. The clock is ticking so that it doesn't drag out...
However, to the provider the math could be adding up...they may submit a $6K bill looking to recover $3K (after discounts, etc.). It sounds like Teg is not getting credit for the $3K already paid on this bill. By quick math, it sounds like the procedure normally is about $4K; so they discount 25% (per Teg's plan) to come up w/$3K of prepaid for services. The $4K would probably get "billed" to insurance as $6K to net $4K. Again, medical billing is a cumbersome process, and it sounds like Teg is not getting credit for her payment. I would bet that the dental provider has not "checked their account" as Teg noted Carecredit's payment method! But, you are very correct that a written dispute is critical, and in that wording such as "time is of the essence" should be included to add to the "ticking of the clock".
Thanks y'all, that is very good info to know. I have drafted the actual typed dispute letter stating the amount is disputed, giving the timeline of events as they happened, (much as I have described in this post) asking for copies of all records & requesting the said balance of 3157 to be waived due to the fact they made a billing error and we were not properly disclosed or given the opportunity to make an informed decision. I included a single reference to our potential rights under the Buisness & Commerce Code Section 17, Deceptive Trade Acts to show I mean buisness. I will print it at work this weekend because my printer has declared mutiny on me & send it Monday morning CMRRR. When I first learned of the extra 3K my 1st thought was how in the heck did they come up with that???? I'm still confused about just how much work they are trying to bill us for. I guess I will see when I get the records from them. If they say we owe a total of 6K, then if our discount was applied to the overall total then that should have been 8K. 8K minus 25% (2000) would leave 6K. Good greif! Even a cash only estimate we had gotton some time before from a dentist with a snazzy office was only 5.5K so something is seriously wrong. That was the reason I got the dental plan in the first place, to help offset the cost. I would have been crazy not to. Biz I am seeing logic in your post that suggests that maybye the Carecredit payment is not being seen in this scenario. Thats the only explanation I can think of because it appears that the price they are asking now does not even comply with the dental plans discount, it sounds instead to be a full priced amount. I hope to have resolution soon, I do not want to have to pay a lawyer to take them to court & if I have to I'll be asking for alot more than 3,157. I hate to think where I would be without this awesome board. Thats a scary thought. BTW where credit reporting is concerned this is all in hubby's name. My name was only on the carecredit acct so if it does hit it will hit his. Which is less damaging than if it hit mine as my credit is what got the house and our current credit accts. I make the income, he takes care of the house & kiddos and does occassional carpentery when his back allows it. Still I have no desire to mess with collection calls & CA's over this. I hope I will have good news to report soon. They have ignored my email so the official papertrail begins. Thanks again, Tegleg
Well joy, I sent certified mail a written dispute to what I thought was the corporate office in Dallas Texas. Lo & behold I got it back today with a "return to sender" sticker on it. More google time and I find that the actual corporate office is in CA. So I make out a new envelope. On a whim I decide to call the number that is listed. I finally get ahold of the head manager for the billing offices & tell her I have a dispute. I tell her what has happened & that we dispute the amount they say we owe & that we were never informed of a higher amount or given the proper information to make an informed decision. She seemed to understand what I was telling her & stated that she would look into it & call me back. She said definitly something was not right & agreed that a insurance claim should not have been filed. I am hoping for good news soon. But considering my luck lately..... Tegleg
Ggggrrrr..... been over a week and no news, I called back to talk to the head billing manager Friday & was told she was away from her desk. Guess I will be sending that letter after all.. with the addition of my experience with the head billing manager added to it. Tegleg
Teg, Hang in there. It's always a good practice to follow up with documentation anyway. Don't let them get you down.
Finally some good news, I got nowhere with calling the corporate office, the girl I talked to originally never called back & was always "gone" when I called. I sent a CMRRR to the office that did the billing demanding copies of all records and billing and threatening to get an attorney. They sent me some copies of stuff that showed nothing about what was billed or how it was figured & had highlighted a part of a page that said we would be responsible for any amount not paid by insurance. I fired back another CMRRR letter stating there was no insurance to be filed in the first place, we only had a discount plan & since it was not an emergency procedure they had ample time to quote us correctly & we were not going to be responsible for paying in excess what we were told to pay, certainly not double the amount. I again stated I would attain legal counsel & fight this every way I could if the matter wasn't dropped. That was about 4 months ago & we have heard nothing else from them, no bills, no calls, nothing. We have been monitoring hubbys credit report to make sure the account does not get listed there as a collection. Not sure what to think, I think maybe they have given up trying to get us to pay. Not going to let my guard down though. I have documentation of everything. Goes to show what can be accomplished by not giving in and being as much of a pita you can be. Hopefully this is over. Tegleg
They may have realized their error or there laying low.So beware of snakes.The world is full of people who make mistakes then say i never gave you that price.2 things become clear they quoted you that price or you wouldn't have quoted that to the discount plan.1.someone who posted sounded like they worked for the dental office and more or less told you to pay the total.Why pay what was not agreed on.And yes i have made mistakes that has cost me money and i didn't pass it on and i admitted it to the customer however i also made it right.
I'm torn as to what *I* would do next. There's the whole "don't poke the bear", but then again I might send once last CMRRR letter stating "your silence can only be presumed as this issue is closed." Something along those lines. Might be worth spending $50 or so to have an attorney draft it up and put it on their letterhead? That's just me thinking outloud, and typing it.
