Pay or Fight?

[wildthing]

Wanted to get perspectives from the Pelican brain trust. Here's a quick history.

Hospital has old record of my wife's info, having given birth in that hospital 5 years ago.

Last year, we went for another delivery. At the ER, wife gave all NEW information. We have since moved and changed jobs. All this while she was under stress from preterm labor and high blood pressure.

A day later we were transferred to a sister hospital that had the right facilities. Gave all the new info again to this hospital and all was well.

Didn't hear anything from the old hospital until a few weeks ago when the "debt" was now with a collector.

Collector seems ok to deal with so far, however is trying to collect $1,500. Not chump change, especially after paying about twice that already to the sister hospital as co-pay.

Wife calls old hospital, finds out they DIDN'T have the right address, they were billing my OLD insurance, sending bills to the OLD address. Finally billed MediCal (which I assume is for those unable to pay and without insurance).

Collector is willing to negotiate down to 1K if paid this month.

But out of principle I am inclined to say no, because the old hospital screwed up.

What say you?

[wdfifteen]

Do you owe them $1500 for services or are there a bunch of late fees included in that? You don't owe them late fees if they screwed up the billing. If you ran up a $1500 bill and they're only asking for $1000, pay it and run like a thief. And notify Medical that they were improperly billed.

[GH85Carrera]

I would not pay them anymore than what insurance would have NOT covered. They can go after the insurance company for the bulk of the cost.

[Tobra]

What Glen said. If she was in two different hospitals on the same day, you probably met your deductible.

[John Rogers]

We have something similar happening with the Medicare bill from my wife's joint specialist. It seems the office manager forgot to submit the bill to Medicare over two years ago and because of her issues she was finally fired. So the new office manager wants us to pay the $400+ amount as when she submitted the bill to the gov't they said to pack it! So I told the doctors office they will have to eat the bill and the manager said my wife can't see the doctor for any more visits but she has been going monthly anyways? The doctor said not to worry about it so we don't.

The bill was put on her credit report as a non payment but I had it removed after they found out what had happened so no ill effect. So far no collection company has called or written us as I don't think any of those crooks want to mess with it? If it were me I would only pay any actual co-pays that would be normal for the original bill.

[wildthing]

Thanks for the replies.

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

Do you owe them $1500 for services or are there a bunch of late fees included in that? You don't owe them late fees if they screwed up the billing. If you ran up a $1500 bill and they're only asking for $1000, pay it and run like a thief. And notify Medical that they were improperly billed.

Great question. It doesn't say. It just said 1500 and change, so my wife was asking for a detailed statement.

[Tobra]

On the one Mr Rogers described, it is 100% the fault of the billing office, so they eat it. It is illegal for them to try and charge you that money, if they accept assignment from medicare, BTW Mr R.