Hi,

I was wondering if someone could give me an advice. I have changed health insurance carrier in 01/2007. I took my son to emergency room in 02/2007 and forgot to give the hospital new insurance info. The hospital tried to bill old insurance carrier, the claim was obviously denied and I have received the bill from outsourced medical billing company that handles billing for the hospital in 03/2007. I called billing company next morning after receiving the bill, apologized and gave them new insurance info. In 04/2007 I received exact same bill asking me to pay the $769 balance. I called them again and asked what was going on. The call center rep told me not to worry, that I will keep receiving the bills while the claim goes through. I specifically asked, whether I should ignore those bills and he said yes, ignore them, "we will let you know if there is any problem with insurance claim". I have not recorded the call and didn't even ask for the rep's name (my big mistake #1). I have kept receiving those bills every month and kept ignoring them (big mistake #2). Fast forward to 03/2008 - this Monday I receive a collection notice on this bill. I have called CA and told them my story and that the mistake of some sort was made by the billing company. The collections person told me that they have not submitted this collection to CRA's yet after my direct question. As of this morning nothing is in reports. I have called the OC billing company and after a number of conversations I was able to have rep on the recorded call admit that they have record of me supplying correct insurance info back in 03/2007 and that they have no idea why this claim was never submitted to insurance company. "We will investigate and get back to you" they said. I have recording of this call. Nobody called me back and yesterday I had called the supervisor in the billing company who was handling my case who told me that they have resubmitted this claim and are waiting for the results. Since this whole mess was their mistake I have told him to pull the file from collections agency and he said he would do just that (have recording of this conversation as well).
I called CA and told them the status hoping this would be the end of it. On the contrary, the CA people became agitated, the guy said smth like "The file is with us now and they can't pull it" and "they have completely screwed up this claim, now we have to clean up the mess" and insisited on me giving CA my insurance info and that they will deal with insurance claim. He said that nothing was submitted to CRA's yet, but it's entirely up to them, the CA whether to do it or not. I assume that CA is concerned about their commission - if OC pulls the file from them, they get no action. I have not given any insurance info to CA. I am concerned that doing that would invalidate my chances of using the HIPAA process to remove whatever might end up on my report.
I'm not sure if my insurance will pay this claim now, because it's been over a year since the treatment date.

So my question is - should I stop communicating with CA completely. Should I send a letter disputing the debt. The problem is that the debt is valid, the hospital wasn't paid yet. I have a gut feeling that it's the best course of action, but at the same time I'm somewhat concerned about agitating the CA while my credit records are clean yet - there is a chance they will sent this collection to CRA's out of spite if they don't earn commission on this collection. Can someone give an advice?

Thank you in advance.