When I moved from Poughkeepsie, NY back to Moncton in 2000, I admit that I skipped out on my last cable and power bills. If I ever end up back there I may be in a little bit of trouble but the amounts were very small. If anything, the two bills were less than $200. Easy enough to write off. I have however had my own experiences with collection agencies in the past when I had really crappy credit and went through a bad spell of not being able to pay some of my bills. I think we all have had some hard times and have tried our best to get through them. I am glad I am past that stuff now. Or so I thought…
As some of you may recall, last year I got sick while down in the US and had to spend a few hours in a US hospital. I followed through and made sure that Blue Cross had paid the bill and all was thought to be done with it. Then about four months ago I get this call from someone who tells me they are a debt collector and that I owe $539 to Mercy Suburban Hospital. Whoever that person was got an interesting story from me when I told them that I was in fact from Canada and that the bill had already been paid and they would need to contact the insurance company and deal with them. I was not involved in the process. That much was true as the hospital had billed the insurance company and they paid the bill. I told this person on the phone that I had no idea what she was talking about. She also proceeded to tell me that I had failed to produce an address when I was at the hospital and this was why I never received a bill. I told her that I had the bill in front of me, WITH my address so obviously someone there made the mistake. I told her to deal with Blue Cross as it was their problem.
About a week ago, Tamara took a call again from the same collection agency insisting that I owe this money. I called them back and told them that I had no idea what they were talking about. They insisted that I did and one person I spoke to was VERY pushy about MAKING me get the information he wanted so that the bill could be paid. I politely told him that I was not paying anything until someone provided me a copy of the bill. He claimed they could not produce a copy of the bill and that I would have to call the hospital. So, I tried that.
I called them and everytime I asked to speak to someone in billing, I kept getting this voicemail message telling me that the box was full and to call someone else. Eventually I asked to be transferred to someone else who then told me I would need to speak to billing and transferred me back to the same voicemail box.
Over the course of several days last week and this week, I have spoken to several different people who have all told me that I need a copy of this bill but none of them have a copy to give me. I have told these people repeatedly that I’m not paying anything or submitting anything to the insurance company until I get a bill.
Yesterday, I spoke to someone who indicated that he might be able to get me a copy of the bill and that he would call me back with more info. I didn’t believe him but sure enough, when I got home last night, there were two messages from the same guy and I finally got at least a little bit of an answer.
There was indeed TWO bills to be paid. The one from the hospital and one from radiology. The hospital bill was paid but the latter was not. I never received the radiology bill because their computer systems won’t accept a Canadian address and therefore the address given to them by the hospital was invalid. This explained why the collection agency had no address on file for me. It does not however explain the fact that no one from radiology ever called me about this missing money.
He then told me that because of this computer issue, he could not mail me a copy of the invoice. He asked if I had a fax # which I gladly provided to him and he was going to fax me the invoice. It seemed like I would finally get my invoice and get someone to pay it.
Well, I never got a fax from him, and am still without an invoice and still cannot get this bill paid.
Let me tell you, if there was ever a reason to be happy about Canadian health care, it’s right now. We may pay higher taxes and it may not be the best system, but at least we don’t have to deal with this kind of crap. I still have no invoice and I will bet money they will call again and wonder why I haven’t paid anything out. It infuriates me that they want this money so bad but are not willing to do something simple to help get it paid.
