I went into this hospitals emergency room one evening for an emergency with my wife.in intake they asked us all of the usualy questions and we gave them all the info they asked for and informed them that they would have to bill the Veterans Affairs Millenium bill for the care as I qualify under that bill with the Department of Veterans Affairs. I am a service connected disabled veteran for being permanantly hurt while conducting military service in a war area. I even filled out the appropriate release information for them to send everything the VA would need to pay the bill. I didn't hear another word from anyone; hospital or va to indicate that the bill had not been paid. A year later I get a summons to court and am being sued because the bill had not been paid.
I immediatly called the hospital to find out what was going on and they informed me that I had never paid the bill. I asked them if they billed it out to the VA like I told them to and they said no. Again I instructed them on how to do that and they were denied because they missed the window for file for payment (most insurance companies and government programs have these windows) so they continued with the law suit.
I got my hands on the fair patient billing act and it says they must submit for the insurance claim and then if it is denied, before trying to collect any other way either by third parts or courts, they must first try to get it paid for through any public assistance programs they offer (most hospitals have these) and if that is denied then they must offer a payment plan.
This hospital jumped straight to superior court (small claims court) and violated state laws. This is a bad way to do business. Come to find out they built a new 100 million dollar hospital in a town that measures 14,000 people and that they have many superior court cases trying to collect as much as possible suspectedly to pay for their new overkill of a hospital. I know hospitals are expensive but to build a brand new state of the art, glass walled hospital in a town that size is above and beyond the needs of the community. They already had a facility, it just needed some tlc and a makeover. Even the hospital in the town I live in (Decatur population 86,000) just a hand full of miles from there isn't that elaborate and they just renovated it and did some build ons.
This hospital needs to be investigated by the attorny general and several other health care regulation organizations to ensure the people how live there and patron there are treated fairly and by the law. I even found errors on my bill. Ripoff.
0 comments