Okay, so my husband goes to the doctor and the doctor wants him to get an MRI. They presubmit it so the insurance can say if it's medically necessary or not and also so they'll cover it. We get a bill a month later (May) for the services and it says that our insurance covered so much, wrote off so much and then we owe 1000.00. We started paying small (50.00) amounts on it and then realized that the amount left made no sense so we contacted our insurance and local MRI office about it.

I will admit....I haven't been on top of it, and have let it go on since late June (my last payment) while this insurance situation got worked out. Well, low and behold today we get a collection notice. YIKES!!

I called the OC and asked if they could pull it back that I would pay over the phone right now in full.....she said that a manager wasn't there today to approve that and usually they didn't pull things back once it had been turned. She said it got turned over on September 30th.....so if I called the CA and paid that it wouldn't be put on our credit. Ummm, no

I haven't checked our credit yet, but I would rather pay the OC and leave the CA out of this.....what would you do?

I called the MRI office where we had this procedure done and left a message for billing to see if we could just come in and pay it there...no call back yet. Would that take care of it in a safe way?

I just do not need this on my credit, nor does my husband....I worked too hard to clean it up and can't go down this road again.

What to do, what to do.

Thanks!!

Well, paid it locally....the billing office said it wasn't a problem and they'd let the collections office know. A week later and we just got a call from the CA

I phoned again and she said she'd take care of it right now.....when should I check our credit to see if it's on there? Do most CAs put it on the credit report right after receiving the transfer of bills or do they only put it on there after you don't pay?

Just wondering what the chances of this screwing up our credit are.

They usually wait 30 days after you've gotten the dunning letter if you don't dispute it. I'd send the CA a nice little letter (even tho billing said they'd take care of it) and remind them that you paid the medical care provider directly, and if this gets put on your credit report even if marked "paid" you will peruse legal actions, since this account was re-called from the medical provider.

I'd send this CMRR so you know they got it.

NO NO NO!! Do NOT communicate the fact that you paid the OC to the CA, if you do THAT then you will have NO RECOURSE against either of them if it shows up as a "paid" collection.

If it shows up on your reports,
Dispute it to the CRA with the initial dispute letter.
http://whychat.5u.com/hipaadisp.html

If it DOES show on your reports to a "paid" collection, send the reporting CA this;
http://whychat.5u.com/ltrcavalhipaa.html#PAID

I have an insurance scenario as well. I received treatment in June 08. Insurance covered mostly everything. I waited and got a bunch of bills from different cogs in the system. I paid all but one for $700 by October 08. The statement from my healthcare provider didn't match up with the bills and I thought it had been paid already.

To make a long story short, the OC put the $700 into collections with Focus Financial. I disputed it with the 3 bureaus online, and all 3 said it was verified by the CA.

I hope I didn't screw myself here, I sent the collection agency an offer to settle the debt even though I believed it had been paid already. They only responded by mailing me a copy of the original bill from the OC dated February 09, and a week later a "final notice" to pay or they would investigate my ability to pay.

Today I called the OC to sort out if I actually owed this bill, in hindsight this would have been smarter a while back. I did find out that one of the divisions of the hospital owes me $200 for overpayment, but the $700 was legit from the emergency room, however, it had finally been paid by my insurance company in June 09, a day after they finally billed them.

So the bill is paid but I have had contact with the collection agency. Can I use the Hipaa method based upon this info?

Please help!

Please repost your question in YOUR OWN new post. Every one's situation is different and you can not "tack on" to someone elses problem.