Alegent Health is concerned about my credit but what about my HEALTH!? Remember when I blogged about Alegent ticking me off?
I get two statements in the mail this week on the same day. One that tells me the following:
We know your credit is important to you and we are concerned that you have not sent in the required minimum payments to keep your account current. Your account is now over 60 days old. If you are unable to pay the amount due in full, we have a generous financial assistance program for those who qualify. Payment plans are also available, but you must call to avoid further action. Please do not delay. Blah Blah Blah.
The statement says I owe $156.64.
The next statement I get along with the first statement on the same day doesn’t really talk a whole lot about my credit. This one spells out all the procedures that were done, what the procedure costs, and what if any the insurance company has forked over to cover that cost.
This statement says I owe $159.09.
Confusion hits me with a ton of bricks so I pick up the phone and call the billing office to try and figure out why the amounts are so different from each other. I give the gal on the phone my account number (the same one for both statements) and she gives me a completely different balance that I owe.
She tells me my balance is $129.09.
How is this possible? I ask her and lets me know that they received a $30.00 payment on my balance. That’s interesting because unless I make arrangements to make payments (I hardly ever do) I usually just pay the entire balance off but only after they work out what the insurance company is supposed to pay.
What really baffles me is why these people can’t look at their computer history to see how long we’ve been patients of Alegent and whether or not we have always paid our portion of the bills that come due? Maybe I think too much, who knows?
So I let the gal know that obviously this is going to be a huge accounting issue on my part and that I will wait for the new statement to come with the final balance due. She says it’s $129.09 and the two statements I have in front of me give two different amounts.
What’s even more weird is that in my Quicken program I see a check made out to Methodist Hospital for $30.00 and a co-pay check made out to Alegent Health for $15.00 from when I took my daughter to see our family physician. Nowhere on my Quicken program do I see a payment of $30.00 to Alegent. I don’t understand how they could have received such a thing as of yesterday like the girl said.
I explained to her that I don’t normally make payments on balances unless the balance is HUGE. Clearly this one is not. But, that’s not the point. The point is… I have three different balances according to Alegent. Therefore, I have a right to wait for the statement that reflects the true and accurate amount while in the process more trees are being killed to create this paper trail.
Who am I to complain… at least they are concerned about my credit… right?
$156.64
$159.09
$129.09
20/05/2009 at 5:49 PM Permalink
GIRL! I got the same thing last week (I have Care First.)
Letter goes similar to yours:
blah blah blah impact on your credit report blah blah blah in these hard economic time blah blah 60 days over due….
This atrocious bill that is going to destroy my credit:
$0.66
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!!? I don’t’ even think they let your write checks for $0.66. I can and say that I have never in my life received a bill for $0.66. They says “We don’t bill until it reaches $5.00.” I told them to void my $0.66 since their $5.00 policy cause my 60 days passed due.
21/05/2009 at 3:22 PM Permalink
Hi Angela. Thanks for reaching out – I’d like to help you, so if you want to ask more specific questions about this situation, please do not hesitate to contact me directly via e-mail at eric.mooss@alegent.org. Thanks Angela!
27/05/2009 at 6:46 PM Permalink
Cyndii – I have received bills in the past for small amounts like the one that you have described but not necessarily from Alegent Health. Most of the smaller amounts were under $2.00 and I believe they were from the Urgent Care Clinic of Omaha. It’s a newer facility out in West Omaha off Maple Street by Walmart. Anyway, the next time I get one of those I will scan and post it for you guys to see whiting out all of my pertinent information of course.
Eric – I appreciate your interest in this discussion. I can’t say that I blame you for wanting to reach out and help. Hopefully these open discussions will help everybody in the long run. At the moment I am waiting for the latest bill to come to my house, then I will call to re-verify the amount again. I’ll keep you guys posted for sure.
But seriously, when patients call to make appointments.. I don’t think they should be grilled about any balances that they might have. That should be left up to the billing department and it should be dealt with via the phone OR some sort of mailer. And if the patient has health insurance then it should be resolved with the health insurance company first. I also think that the billing department should have the ability to look at payment history so that they can determine if the client has good history with them.
These are suggestions that I think work to benefit all.
27/05/2009 at 6:50 PM Permalink
One more thing — Yes, my credit is very important to me but so is my health. I don’t like having these comments about my credit in these current economic times being waved around at me. My FICO score is in the 800’s. I don’t carry credit card balances and the only debt we have is our school loan and our house. In other words, we have excellent credit and are not intimidated by such comments on billing forms. It’s just not right when our payment history with Alegent is satisfactory.