Hey All,
Hope that all is well. I may be creating more problems for myself than needed, but I’ve encountered something that I wanted to get a little advice on.
Back in June of 2019, I had a late night ER visit from a broken bone. Went to the hospital, got treated, gave them my insurance information, and wrote it off. Well, in October they had issued me a statement saying that my insurance had failed to cover the Doctor bill and it had been turned over to collections. I knew that something had to have been wrong because my insurance had never been billed or seen a claim. Well, after a long series of calls between my my insurance agency, the collections agency, and the hospital, the hospital went to bill the hospital charge and realized that they had recorded my insurance number incorrectly (swapped an ‘I’ for a ‘1’) and thus, had incorrectly billed me. As a result, the hospital recalled the debt and all charges, and the collections account was deleted and then removed from all 3 credit reports.
The question is this… I would imagine that I have to answer yes to having a debt turned over to collections, correct? Despite it having been an improper charge in the first place and ultimately waived? I can do that and have no problem then explaining it to an investigator (I was granted a clearance with the collections account still open, so not too worried). My bigger concern is having to explain that the account has since been cleared, yet having absolutely no paperwork to show payment or anything due to the hospital recalling the debt with no payment from myself or insurance. Do you think this will be a problem? Or am I digging too deep?
Thanks as always!
List it as completely as you can and be prepared to explain it if needed. Your story is sooooooo common. I must hear that story 3-5 times a month from people. Medical/dental/hospital billing agencies seem to be more likely to send things to collections than to call you and ask if you can pay or resolve the issue. Sometimes I think medical providers get incentives to turn things over to collections.
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Not unusual. Medical billing people cross contaminate their billing all the time. If you can explain it away, do so.
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Certain 3 letter places dig deeper. FICO doesn’t matter, history does. Sounds like it is cleared up, but I would build a file folder, copy all neatly…give to investigator.
I didn’t realize it was so common, but I’m honestly relieved that it is. It really is crazy to me how quickly and effortlessly they decided to turn it over to collections, and even more shocking that they just said “screw it, you don’t owe us anything” after learning about it being mischarged. I’m definitely not complaining, but very interesting.
Awesome, thank you! Definitely seems like it will just come down to my having to explain the situation in future investigations.
I figured they would, and by already having submitted SF-86 and gone through an investigation with it on the table, it’s already a part of my record with them.
Definitely all cleared up at this point, my only concern is the complete lack of a paper trail. The only document I have is the original letter saying it was turned over to collections, the rest of the action took place without any action from me, and I was only notified over the phone and by pulling my credit reports. Hoping the lack of documentation won’t cause a problem with future investigations.
Not unusual to not have. Being able to show it is rectified is a big plus. That said, I’ve seen folks with 800 FICOs, who had to explain debt written off years prior. All if that goes to living up to your obligations, agreements etc. It isn’t unusual at all to miss a payment, or particularly an insurance snafu where you don’t ever get the bill or it’s two years after the event. But if the overall payment record shows you faithfully take care of obligations…the government believes it speaks to trustworthiness.
Which definitely makes sense in my mind. I suppose the government only has so much to go off of when it comes to determining how reliable you are, and something like personal finance is, you would think, something that most people would want to be vigilant about. That being said, it’s unfortunate how volatile that can be and how there can always be something that can go wrong with it…
Anyways, thank you! I expect I’ll just have to report what I have and hope that it won’t be much of a problem. It was a rather small account to begin with, and having it taken care of at this point should help.
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