After a minor car accident, I went directly to the hospital to get checked out. The accident happened on company time, and I let the hospital staff know that the incident would be a workers compensation case.
I have received a few bills saying I need to pay the doctors bill of $373.00. Eventually the billing service contacted me, and I gently told the representative that this was a workers comp issue, and that my HR department was working on it. I offered the HR department contact name and number, but the representative said they were not allowed to contact them, and they could only call me. So, I told them that they would have to be patient and wait for the process to work.
A couple of days ago, I received a letter saying "Final Notice" and that if I didn't pay the bill, it would be referred to a collecting agency. I called the billing company, Team Health, whoever that is, and told them I was not appreciative of getting the nasty letter/bill without them calling me first. After, again giving them the HR contact name and number at my work, they told me they couldn't call them, nor do they ever call customers like me, because it's not in their policy to do so. Anyway, I have offered them contact information, which they refuse to take, and plus they are threatening me to report my bill to a collection agency, all because I went to the emergency room of a hospital after a car accident that was not my fault.
How do I keep these guys from further harassing me? What rights do I have and timeframes are they required to use by state law? Are these billing companies even held accountable for how they collect payments or how they make reports to collection agencies? Do, I need to contact the hospital and not this so called billing company?
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