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I wasn't sure where exactly to post this but wanted to get it out there and see if anyone could offer some advice. I have been clearing up my Credit Report for the past 2 years and was almost at a respectable 670. I had a dental bill default and go into collections as the insurance was dragging its feet since they were over billed. My insurance payed their portion of the bill ( i never got notification of this) and I paid the collections people the remainder as soon as I got the reduced bill from them. Is there any way I can dispute the negative on my credit report as it was reported before the final adjustment was made?

Yesterday I got into an accident, and based on my description over the phone, my insurance agent (GEICO) told me that there is a high possibility of total loss. However, I won't be sure until a GEICO inspector takes a look at it. The accident took place on 12/22, so I won't get any news until after the Christmas holiday weekend. (Monday would be 12/28) I'm currently over a month (but less than two) late on my car payment. When I called my loan company to tell them what had happened, they told me that my car was currently in "collections/repo status" and that my car insurance may deny my claim based on this fact, so I need to make my payment asap. Does anyone know how much of what my loan company is telling me is true? Could they just want the money as soon as possible because the insurance process takes too long? I understand that if I am upside down on the loan, I'm still on the hook for the remaining balance, but, again, I wouldn't know if that is the case for sure until after the inspection. Bottom line: am I really in "collections/repo" status if I am still making payments to my loan company and not a collections agency? And if I am in that status, is it true that GEICO may deny my claim due to it? I'd like to save this money for the holidays (and possibly a new car), if the insurance can take care of it instead of me.

Hello, I recently had my first accident after 20+years of driving - Totally my fault. I took my car in to get an insurance estimate which came out to close to $2400 (my car is only worth about $3500 before accident) they took out my $500 deductible and a $1900 check was sent to me in the mail. I also received a check for around $25 for diminished value So Here's my questions - I am sure the diminished value for my car is more than $25. How would I fight that with the insurance company ? and since the damages are already close to the 80% ($3500*80% =$2800) the point where most cars are totaled by the insurance company, would it be worth it to ask for more or will it only bump me into a position of having my car totaled?? My car runs fine and the damage is mostly to the side door panels. I would really do not want to have it totaled. I have gap coverage and my loan would be covered, but I do not want to get into a newer more expensive car and car payment. In addition to even higher insurance rates with a newer car+accident on record. I already had a plan to have all of my debt paid off by July 2016. My plans now are to use the $1900 and pay down debt ( about half), so I can be debt free closer to the end of this year. and have the work done once I'm debt free, or whenever I am ready to sell/ trade in. I am unsure of how this all works and I still haven't cashed the checks, in case that would constitute acceptance. I would like to get this figured out as soon as possible so I can deposit the check and get on with paying my debt off. Any help would be greatly appreciated. TIA SC

Hi, Last summer, I went to the ER and was billed for three services - the ER facility fee, the ER doctor's fee, and the fee for the CT scan I received. My insurance paid the ER facility and ER doctor's fees, but did not pay for the CT scan. My insurance company covers almost everything, and they've never denied a claim before - they're stating that they have never even received the claim for the CT scan, and therefore certainly didn't deny it. I discovered this after it was posted to my CR by a JDB. I contacted the JDB, and they agreed to remove it for 60 days but would place it back on my CR if the bill was not paid by that point. The JDB also stated that they would contact the radiology firm and ask them to *correctly* bill it to my insurance company. I've asked the JDB to send me a copy of the bill so I can attempt to send it to my insurance company to have it rebilled, but they've not sent one to me. The issue is, I'm certain that the radiology firm incorrectly billed my insurance company, and they essentially refuse to rebill them or give me a copy of my statement so that I could have the opportunity to either pay it or send it to my insurance company for reconsideration. I've asked the JDB and the radiology firm (had to email them as they don't have a public phone number) to resubmit the bill to my insurance, but they're both essentially playing dumb and saying that it was declined by my insurance - which again, even if was declined, there's no reason why they can't resubmit it - they're really making it difficult for me and I'm not sure what to do at this point. It's the only negative thing on my CR and I'm really upset about it as all it would take was a simple rebilling to get this situation resolved. Advice?

We are residents of Orlando, FL and need help with medical debt for lab test. In summary - the test was performed in Nov 2012, and the insurer had pre-approved this out-of-network lab as in-network - the insurer and lab went back and forth over the bill and are still going back and forth over the bill, now with my employer’s HR involved - we never received a bill from the lab, despite us updating our address with them and USPS with our new address - On March 17, 2015, we received notice (dated March 10) from a collection agency for a $19K debt that includes $2600 of interest - The lab claims they cannot take it back from the collections agency - Lab has not responded to a request for the debt amount; instead, they sent a patient ledger dated Apr 8, 2015 that shows patient responsibility of zero for every test; note, they do not have a phone My questions: - Other than a request for debt verification to the collection agency, what should I do? - Who do I negotiate with, the lab or the collection agency? - Does the fact the insurer is still working on it (based on contacting the employer again) have any relevance? - Is there a risk they could damage my credit score? Details: On March 17, we received a letter from a collection agency, claiming medical debt of $ 19k, that is inclusive of an interest amount of $2,600. The lab is located in Atlanta, GA. We received their services (a series of lab tests) for our son in November 2012. I have a family health insurance plan that is self insured by my employer, which is a large corporation, and administered by a TPA insurance company. Although the lab was originally out-of-network for the insurance company, we managed to obtain pre-approval for these services to be given with in-network benefits. In fact, the lab only agreed to perform those lab tests that were preapproved. We were expecting to pay nothing more than any applicable copay, coinsurance, etc. The insurance company denied many of the claims from the lab. The lab ended up filing a large number of appeals to the insurance company, but the claims remained largely denied. In January 2015, the lab turned the account over to the collection agency. The collection agency made their first communication to us on March 17. Pertinently, the lab seems to have turned the account over to the collection agency without sending us any billing statement that indicated that we owed them the sum of money that the collection agency alleged. After getting the letter from the collection agency, we promptly wrote them back, disputing the debt, mentioning that no statement was sent to us, and asking the collection agency to validate the debt by providing relevant documents. We are still awaiting the validation documents from the collection agency. Then we contacted the lab by mail and email (they don’t accept phone calls), basically asking that we resolve the issue with them directly and not the collection agency. In reply, the lab alleged that they sent it to our address. We have a hard time believing that because we moved to a new address in June 2013 but updated both the lab with our new address and USPS. Furthermore, despite communicating them with E-mail frequently, they never replied that way (granted, billing is often handled by a third party company) or called us. The lab also mentioned that they cannot retract the account from the collection agency but can request them to not report my credit account as we work on resolving the issue. Pertinently, the lab did not send us a statement indicating the debt amount even as we emailed them with a request to send it to us. Instead, they sent us an itemized patient ledger dated April 8, 2015 showing every lab test that was done, along with the cost, amount paid by insurance and patient responsibility. Interestingly, the patient ledger shows zero amount in the patient responsibility field for each of the test and does not indicate any overall patient responsibility. In short, the patient ledger does not validate the debt amount being claimed. At this time, we are unable to decide in which direction to pursue the matter. What options do we have now? The collection agency has not reported to the credit bureau yet. I am willing to make a settlement for a fraction of the original debt, say up to 30% (give or take), with the collection agency. However, should I hold off because the debt may not be theres. Or should I negotiate with the lab? My fear is they already turned if over to the collection agency. And what if the insurance company does pay off the provider? I would appreciate any help

I was admitted to the emergency room at the beginning of April 2012 by my grandparents down in Nevada (I lived in Washington before and after this incident so that's where my insurance is through- First Choice Health) for suicidal ideation and an anxiety attack. After being held there for a couple days I was moved to a psychiatric hospital for an involuntary psychiatric stay. We had met our deductable for the year because of these stays and after that my mother and I arranged payments with them while waiting for insurance to chime in but it seemed to be taking longer than normal. I soon decided to call the hospital and they told me that the insurance wasn’t responding to their claim. When I called insurance, they said that they never received anything from that time period. For the next few months I continued to check in with both ends but there was obviously a continued miscommunication because nothing has been taken care of. We tried conducting three-way calls to work it out and every few weeks I attempted to get an update of the status but it all has been unsuccessful. At the end of December 2012 I called the hospital to give permission for my mother to deal with further inquiries while I went on a volunteer trip, but when I returned, my mother informed me that they had been refusing to speak with her because “their records had been wiped.” They sent me to collections, but when I called the agency and explained, they dismissed the claim. A few more months of bills in the mail and now I have been sent to Grant & Weber, Inc., another collection corporation. Now when I try to call the hospital to figure out what is going on, they won’t even speak to me. They ask, “Can I put you on hold for a minute to check something?” and just like that, after already waiting an hour on hold with them, they forward me to this agency without even hearing what I have to say. Grant & Weber has since threatened to forward my account to their attorney even though I clearly have insurance that is supposed to be paying for my medical bills. The last time I called to dispute the bill they said something about a $60,000 bill that my insurance has already paid $38,000 towards and that's all they wanted to pay. I have absolutely no idea where these random numbers even came from and the representative didn’t stay on the line long enough to explain anything to me. I eventually was able to get a register of bills with the diagnostic codes from the hospital that I included in a letter I sent to my insurance company directly since they has failed to do so. They wrote back saying that it's too late to make a claim. Isn't that what I was trying to do the entire time?? I have no idea what is going on here. I'm only 20 years old, I work and go to school, and I don't have the energy to deal with this. When I checked my credit score recently it said that I have around $3,200 in collections by Grant & Weber and trust me, it's completely killed my credit. I apologize for the huge chunk of text, but I could use any advice on this matter. The insurance company and the hospital apparently have no records of these many calls I had been making trying to fix this. What am I supposed to do? So far we've payed over $6,000 towards an entirely unecessary bill. I don't have any more money to pay this bill, nor should I have to considering I HAVE insurance and my deductable was met. Am I in the wrong?

Anyone know of any good articles, outside of the first 10 pages of an internet search, on medical billing fraud. I have some collections from a few years ago. These collections might be from legitimate bills. However, the reason they weren't paid is likely due to some insurance fraud on the part of a former doctor of mine. The fraud looks like this: He reported charges WAAAY higher to my insurance agency than me, to the tune of $1400 per 15 minute session. That quickly drained my yearly maximums. However, when I went in it was the usual co-pay of $20. There was never a mention of an outstanding balance, or a request for payment from me. There was also never any collections on his part. I suddenly got notice before one appointment that he was no longer with that clinic. I went back to see another doctor and mentioned the discrepancies and he basically said, "He was involved in some funny stuff and I'm part of the reason he's no longer here." So, after his obscene charges other medical services I had ended up in default. I'm would just like to see if I have any legal protections... Thanks.