12 replies to this topic

[dawnterese]

There is a medical collection appearing on my credit report for an ambulance bill for my minor son from April 2006.
I called Medicaid, my son's insurance at the time, and they said a bill had never been submitted.

I called the ambulance company who - reluctantly - said they would now submit the bill to Medicaid. They did not really know how they would go about submitting it because their "system had changed" since that time, but they did agree to submit it.

A court ordered in December 2005 that my son's father, not me, was responsible for any and all of his medical bills.

I'm going to be applying for a mortgage very shortly, and really need this gone from my report. I revised one of the HIPAA letter templates from Why Chat's Credit Confusion page as follows:

This letter is in reference to an account for services provided to **** in April 2006.
In regard to the bill on this account, you were advised you during our telephone conversation recently that **** was covered by Medicaid on the date of service. This information was previously provided to your office, but for some reason, Medicaid has informed me they had not been billed for this service. Please submit the bill to Medicaid as soon as possible if you have not already done so.

Additionally, this bill is appearing on my credit report as a medical collection. According to a court order from the BrowardCounty Circuit Court, I am not the party legally responsible for the medical bills of ****. The court ordered in December 2005 that **** was the person responsible forany and all medical bills incurred by ****. Attached please find a copy of the court order and included pertinent portion of the agreement.

Please be advised that under Federal Statutes. the Fair Credit Reporting Act, (15U.S.C. § 1681 et seq) and Alabama'sConsumer Credit Statutes, and subtitle D of the ARRA ,SEC. 13401. APPLICATIONOF SECURITY PROVISIONS AND PENALTIES TO BUSINESS ASSOCIATES OF COVEREDENTITIES; and SEC. 13407(1) BREACH OF SECURITY.—The term ''breach of security'' means, with respect to unsecured PHR identifiable health information of an individualin a personal health record, acquisition of such information without theauthorization of the individual, you may be held liable for the actions of CreditBureau-Coll. Please note that these liabilities are under the penalty rules ofthe HITECH Act as issued 11/30/2009.

(a)Duty of furnishers of information to provide accurate information.

(1) Prohibition.

(A) Reporting information with actualknowledge of errors.

Aperson shall not furnish any information relating to a consumer to any consumerreporting agency if the person knows or consciously avoids knowing that theinformation is inaccurate.

AsI am not the party legally responsible for this account, the informationreported to Credit Bureau-Coll is inaccurate. Therefore I am requesting you promptly rescind all such accountinformation furnished to Credit Bureau-Coll and require them to purge theirrecords of all reference to this account, and that you insure that any and allreporting of this account is immediately deleted from my credit reports.

This simple procedure to request the deletion of ALL reference to this account from the records of Credit Bureau-Coll and to require them to have this account information deleted in its entirety from my credit reports will resolve this problem completely.

Please respond, in writing, within 10 days that you are processing this request.

I am reserving the right to take appropriate legal and civil action including reporting to any applicable regulatory authorities any lack of cooperation or compliance with this request.

I hereby waive my rights under HIPAA and any State Privacy Act for the single purpose of your transmission of this request and accompanying documentation in any required report you must make to your E&O insurance carrier.

Is this okay, or are there any changes that should be made here? Any help GREATLY appreciated!

[Why Chat]

There is a medical collection appearing on my credit report for an ambulance bill for my minor son from April 2006.
I called Medicaid, my son's insurance at the time, and they said a bill had never been submitted.

I called the ambulance company who - reluctantly - said they would now submit the bill to Medicaid. They did not really know how they would go about submitting it because their "system had changed" since that time, but they did agree to submit it.

A court ordered in December 2005 that my son's father, not me, was responsible for any and all of his medical bills.

I'm going to be applying for a mortgage very shortly, and really need this gone from my report. I revised one of the HIPAA letter templates from Why Chat's Credit Confusion page as follows:

This letter is in reference to an account for services provided to **** in April 2006.
In regard to the bill on this account, you were advised you during our telephone conversation recently that **** was covered by Medicaid on the date of service. This information was previously provided to your office, but for some reason, Medicaid has informed me they had not been billed for this service. Please submit the bill to Medicaid as soon as possible if you have not already done so.

Additionally, this bill is appearing on my credit report as a medical collection. According to a court order from the BrowardCounty Circuit Court, I am not the party legally responsible for the medical bills of ****. The court ordered in December 2005 that **** was the person responsible forany and all medical bills incurred by ****. Attached please find a copy of the court order and included pertinent portion of the agreement.

Please be advised that under Federal Statutes. the Fair Credit Reporting Act, (15U.S.C. § 1681 et seq) and Alabama'sConsumer Credit Statutes, and subtitle D of the ARRA ,SEC. 13401. APPLICATIONOF SECURITY PROVISIONS AND PENALTIES TO BUSINESS ASSOCIATES OF COVEREDENTITIES; and SEC. 13407(1) BREACH OF SECURITY.—The term ''breach of security'' means, with respect to unsecured PHR identifiable health information of an individualin a personal health record, acquisition of such information without theauthorization of the individual, you may be held liable for the actions of CreditBureau-Coll. Please note that these liabilities are under the penalty rules ofthe HITECH Act as issued 11/30/2009.

(a)Duty of furnishers of information to provide accurate information.

(1) Prohibition.

(A) Reporting information with actualknowledge of errors.

Aperson shall not furnish any information relating to a consumer to any consumerreporting agency if the person knows or consciously avoids knowing that theinformation is inaccurate.

AsI am not the party legally responsible for this account, the informationreported to Credit Bureau-Coll is inaccurate. Therefore I am requesting you promptly rescind all such accountinformation furnished to Credit Bureau-Coll and require them to purge theirrecords of all reference to this account, and that you insure that any and allreporting of this account is immediately deleted from my credit reports.

This simple procedure to request the deletion of ALL reference to this account from the records of Credit Bureau-Coll and to require them to have this account information deleted in its entirety from my credit reports will resolve this problem completely.

Please respond, in writing, within 10 days that you are processing this request.

I am reserving the right to take appropriate legal and civil action including reporting to any applicable regulatory authorities any lack of cooperation or compliance with this request.

I hereby waive my rights under HIPAA and any State Privacy Act for the single purpose of your transmission of this request and accompanying documentation in any required report you must make to your E&O insurance carrier.

Is this okay, or are there any changes that should be made here? Any help GREATLY appreciated!

NO NO NO!!

You are over complicating the situation.

Opt out
http://www.whychat.5...OPTOUTINST.HTML
If you have moved since the date of the ambulance service, get your old address deleted from all your reports.
Send a handwritten letter to each CRA with a copy of the report showing the addresses you need deleted, tell them that the address of xxx as circled is not valid and that you are concerned about ID theft/fraud. Include a copy of your drivers license, a copy of your SS card and a recent ORIGINAL utility bill as proof of your identity and correct address.

Once that is done, send each CRA where the account is reporting this:
http://www.whychat.5.../hipaadisp.html

Make sure you are working from REAL reports with individual report #s To order, visit annualcreditreport.com,or call 1-877-322-8228

Even IF the ambulance service was able to recover the fee from Medicaid, it is VERY unlikely that they have any current relationship with the reporting CA, so any efforts to get them paid will be a big waste of time. If you pay the reporting CA it will DAMAGE your credit as it will still be a derogatory but will be 6 years newer.

[dawnterese]

Ack! I should have specified.

I have been reading your information for the past couple of months. I have already opted out. I attempted to delete the address (yes, I had moved since the date of the ambulance service), but they would not remove it. I did send the CRA (it's only reporting on Equifax) the HIPAA dispute letter, but they responded that the CA had verified the information.


How can I establish if there is a current relationship between the ambulance and the reporting CA? And what is my next step from here?

[Why Chat]

Ack! I should have specified.

I have been reading your information for the past couple of months. I have already opted out. I attempted to delete the address (yes, I had moved since the date of the ambulance service), but they would not remove it. I did send the CRA (it's only reporting on Equifax) the HIPAA dispute letter, but they responded that the CA had verified the information.


How can I establish if there is a current relationship between the ambulance and the reporting CA? And what is my next step from here?

Send the reporting CA this:
http://www.whychat.5...cavalhipaa.html

And then re-dispute to Eq. with this:
http://www.whychat.5...aa.html#DISPUTE

[dawnterese]

Send the reporting CA this:

http://www.whychat.5...cavalhipaa.html

And then re-dispute to Eq. with this:

http://www.whychat.5...aa.html#DISPUTE

I sent the letter to the CA then redisputed with the other letter after receiving the green card back. Today, I received a response from the CA stating, "Pursuant to your request, please find enclosed the verification of the debt from the above named creditor." And they attached a a form with the date of service, the provider, the amount owed ... and the diagnosis. Isn't that privileged information? Also, the form has my son's social security number on it, not mine.

Where do I go from here?

[Why Chat]

Send the reporting CA this:

http://www.whychat.5...cavalhipaa.html

And then re-dispute to Eq. with this:

http://www.whychat.5...aa.html#DISPUTE

I sent the letter to the CA then redisputed with the other letter after receiving the green card back. Today, I received a response from the CA stating, "Pursuant to your request, please find enclosed the verification of the debt from the above named creditor." And they attached a a form with the date of service, the provider, the amount owed ... and the diagnosis. Isn't that privileged information? Also, the form has my son's social security number on it, not mine.

Where do I go from here?

Did you get a response from your follow up dispute to Equifax??
http://www.whychat.5...aa.html#DISPUTE

[dawnterese]

Did you get a response from your follow up dispute to Equifax??

http://www.whychat.5...aa.html#DISPUTE

Not yet. Do I wait for that before doing anything else?

[dawnterese]

Also, is there something I can do because they released my son's diagnosis to the CA?

[Why Chat]

Did you get a response from your follow up dispute to Equifax??

http://www.whychat.5...aa.html#DISPUTE

Not yet. Do I wait for that before doing anything else?

Yes, you need to wait as they may delete.
As to the CA having access to your son's records, the HIPAA form you signed when he was admitted allows the OC to transmit personal data to a CA for collection.

[dawnterese]

Did you get a response from your follow up dispute to Equifax??

Not yet. Do I wait for that before doing anything else?

Yes, you need to wait as they may delete.

Well, I still have not received an official response from Equifax. However, a few days after getting my green card back, I received a notice from all three credit bureaus that a 90 day fraud alert was being placed on my credit report files. Then, Equifax sent me an updated credit report showing the ambulance bill still on there. I suppose the fraud alert was their response?

Also, the updated report now shows another collection, this one a paid collection, from the same collection agency, also from a few years ago, and this one was not on any of the reports before.

Is there anything further I can do at this point about the ambulance collection? And should I dispute the new collection account that showed up with Equifax now or wait until the other collection is resolved?

[Why Chat]

Did you get a response from your follow up dispute to Equifax??

Not yet. Do I wait for that before doing anything else?

Yes, you need to wait as they may delete.

Well, I still have not received an official response from Equifax. However, a few days after getting my green card back, I received a notice from all three credit bureaus that a 90 day fraud alert was being placed on my credit report files. Then, Equifax sent me an updated credit report showing the ambulance bill still on there. I suppose the fraud alert was their response?

Also, the updated report now shows another collection, this one a paid collection, from the same collection agency, also from a few years ago, and this one was not on any of the reports before.

Is there anything further I can do at this point about the ambulance collection? And should I dispute the new collection account that showed up with Equifax now or wait until the other collection is resolved?

Send the reporting CA this: You will have to send them 2 dispute letters if one of the accounts is being reported as "paid"( in the same envelope)

http://www.whychat.5...cavalhipaa.html
http://www.whychat.5...hipaa.html#PAID

and then send a follow up dispute

http://www.whychat.5...aa.html#DISPUTE

[dawnterese]

Send the reporting CA this: You will have to send them 2 dispute letters if one of the accounts is being reported as "paid"( in the same envelope) http://www.whychat.5...cavalhipaa.html
http://www.whychat.5...hipaa.html#PAID and then send a follow up dispute http://www.whychat.5...aa.html#DISPUTE

I already sent the CA this http://www.whychat.5...cavalhipaa.html for the ambulance bill and received a printout back from them with the date of service, diagnosis, amount, etc. Should I send that same letter to them again and put it in the same envelope with the letter I am supposed to send for the paid collection?

With the follow up dispute, I had already sent this to Equifax for the ambulance bill. Should I then send this letter again relating to the ambulance bill or only for the new paid medical collection I will be disputing? And if for both, should I do two separate letters to Equifax or include them both on the same letter?

[Why Chat]

Send the reporting CA this: You will have to send them 2 dispute letters if one of the accounts is being reported as "paid"( in the same envelope) http://www.whychat.5...cavalhipaa.html
http://www.whychat.5...hipaa.html#PAID and then send a follow up dispute http://www.whychat.5...aa.html#DISPUTE

I already sent the CA this http://www.whychat.5...cavalhipaa.html for the ambulance bill and received a printout back from them with the date of service, diagnosis, amount, etc. Should I send that same letter to them again and put it in the same envelope with the letter I am supposed to send for the paid collection?

With the follow up dispute, I had already sent this to Equifax for the ambulance bill. Should I then send this letter again relating to the ambulance bill or only for the new paid medical collection I will be disputing? And if for both, should I do two separate letters to Equifax or include them both on the same letter?

No, do not send anything more to the CA just yet.

You should pay the ambulance bill to the OC ambulance service with the HIPAA letter insert "a"
http://www.whychat.5u.com/hipltr.html

Once that is done, check your reports for any change and come back to this post for further instructions.