Okay, bad timing. Discovered that we owed some medical bills from, I kid you not, 1999 in May 2004. Original health billing service admits this was never billed before - blames insurance co. Anyway, upon verifying that we do owe these debts I paid immediately, with an EFT by phone. So imagine my surprise when on our credit report today I find it listed as a collection as of "5/2004" I had paid the original creditor on 5/18/2004 and the funds left my account 5/20. Meanwhile, this creditor failed to notify the collection agent until 6/9/2004. Meanwhile, Coll Agent position is that it wasn't paid within 30 days - too bad, it's on my report. (I suspect they will dig in and refuse to admit anything else for fear of liability). I am going to dispute online but since they will simply ask the Collection agent to verify (not the health billing service) I suspect it will come back as verified. I can prove the date paid but not the date the Collection Agent notified me of the bill (they say it was early April - I know it was the last week, but can't find the original notification). That discrepency makes the difference in whether I paid "within 30 days" when I paid on 5/20. I know I did but even using their dates I paid within what - 33 days? Also, doesn't it provide a "stay" of sorts when I am clealry waiting for original creditor to provide validation? Any tips on getting this cleared up? I feel particularly screwed when I feel I played by the rules and paid up as soon as these charges were validated. This is the "thanks" I get
Who placed the account with the CA? Presumably they still own the account. If it has sat around this long, and they have admitted they goofed, they handled it negligently. Any additional delay was due to how late they presented the bill. It was not due and payable by you until they actually presented a bill. If the CAs first notice to you did not include enough information to determine the legitimacy and correctness of the bill, then 30 days should instead be measured from when you actually received adequate documentation to confirm its validity. A bill delayed by 5 years may reasonably be further delayed long enough to check records and confirm that it is due. (See FCBA, which may or may not apply, but it is common sense that you won't get paid until you submit a bill.). It may even have been past SOL, yet you still paid it in good faith. Go by your records of the timeliness of the billing, not the CA's. You want the owner of the account to have it removed. They were the ones originally negligent, and therefore liable for the consequences. Did they actually present the bill to your insurance in a timely manner? With most in-network providers, under contract, if they fail to bill the insurance company in time, both the insurance company, and the patient are off the hook.
Did you request that the CA provide validation from the OC? How much time elapsed between their providing this validation, and your payment?
Re: Re: Reported for collection after p I paid because these were various co-pays (which I am clearly responsible for) but the original insurer (known for it's slow response time) had waited seemingly FOREVER to pay and, in actuality, the health provider was being patient in simply waiting for insurance to come through instead of hitting us with the "you can be held liable for the entire cost" situation. Once I sat down with the printouts and realized this money ($188) was a bunch of 5% of this and $20 toward that, stuff (from one ER visit and you know how that is - you go to one hospital, see one doctor, and then receive bills from seventeen seemingly unrelated entities for everything from x-ray reading to cotton balls). We did owe it and I don't have a problem paying my share when I am satisfied they are valid debts. The problem is that from start to finish of A) being told we owed after the insurer finally paid to Z) paying bill was maybe 32 days? 33 tops? And that included time to receive printouts to confirm I really owed this. Update: I have verbal confirmation (I know, not worth the paper its not printed on) that this will be corrected. As it is listed on CR as "____ Collection" the correction has to come from them and they state they will process that as well as respond positively to my dispute to insure it is removed. I also have admittance by two CA employees that it was wrongly reported (but cya-ing that it was the OC fault - technically true but all I know is its not MY fault and thus shouldn't be on our CR). Glad to know they see it my way. This is a classic case of miscommunication from the OC to the CA and only because I am diligent did it get solved (knock wood). I intend to follow-up with a letter "per our conversation I understand you will ___ within ____ days." I really feel for people who don't have a resource such as this to learn/know their rights, the proper steps, and how to correct this.
