Out of the Blue (Came the Collection Notice)
Thought this one was interesting. We received a collection notice for a doctor bill that we are 99.9% certain we paid this account in full. The account in question is a $46 bill…….and we believe we paid it early last year. So, the 30 day ‘protest’ clock has begun while we look for our record of the payment. Interesting enough is the first line of the notice:
“Your account has been purchased by InoVision-MedClr-Portofolio Group”
Uhhhhm, ok if it has been purchased, then the original client (the doctor) has written this debt off, right? If the doctor has written it off, why in the heck would we pay some company that obviously spent maybe $2 for the debt? LOL, to top it off, we received a refund check late last year from the same doctor’s group for overpayment…..LOL…… At any rate, this is yet another example of why it is so important to keep meticulous, hard copies of your “paid in full” bills. Sure, WE know that we have paid this debt over a year ago……now prove it, right? No. We do not have to prove anything, this debt #1 was paid and #2 SOLD because the first group has written it off (discharged it). We will not pay a vulture company that has very little to lose. Period. At the same time, we will dispute this item and we will prove payment. It will just take some digging through some old check books (which we keep religiously). If you still use paper checks to pay your bills, we will go over a cool system my wife and I use to help keep track of this type of occurence.
To top it off, we also received more bad news via the US Mail today. We used to eat at a national chain restaurant every weekend. I will not say the name of the chain, but it also carries the same name included in this acronym: TGIF. My wife contracted Salmonella poisoning by eating a Salmon dinner. According to the State of Tennessee’s Health Department, more people are sickened each year via fish rather than chicken as many assume. My wife ended up missing over a week of work and the Salmonella was proven via sample. This chain’s insurance company has denied our claim due to “lack of proof”. Ok, that’s fine, the lawyer is next. It really sucks though because we loved eating there. It isn’t like we were asking for anything more than what we were out of (week’s pay or so, doctor visits, etc). They could have gotten out very cheaply and we would have continued eating there……oh well, that is about all we can say at this point. Needless to say, we are extremely disappointed. Where should we take our “out to eat” business now?
This may be a “phony” collection notice. I once owed a $249 medical bill; didn’t pay immediately. After some time, I received a friendly call from the doctor’s office offering me a “deal” of 30% off. If I paid $174 within 10 days, they’d call it paid in full. I paid, made a note on the bill about the “agreement” and that was that (so I thought). About two months later, I received a collection letter for the “balance” ($75). A note on the letter said to call the doctor’s office if I had questions…I did, the gal said to just ignore it. I said, I can’t ignore it, it’s a collection agency, it’ll screw up my credit. She said, “Oh we don’t authorize them to report it to the credit bureaus, it says here that you’re paid in full, don’t worry about it.” I haven’t heard anything since.
My theory: They made the deal, and then tried what I think is a phony collection scam to see if they could intimidate me into paying the rest. In other words, they take a gamble on whether you’re paying attention or not…I was, had the paperwork, called them on it, so that was that. Still, I thought it was odd, certainly a new tactic in my experience.
Hi hgw!
You are most likely correct in your assessment. I can not count the times in the past we have had doctor’s offices attempt to bill us for the remainder after our insurance had paid. I have located the bill in question and we are showing it as paid. So, we faxed the company a nice little “un-collectable” notice