This happened to me, I got a collection notice without ever receiving a bill. And it was for $15 fucking bucks. I had an office visit and had a couple things done at the same time- I usually don't bother going to the doctor unless I have multiple problems- and apparently someone read this as two visits. The office, of course, knew that it was one visit, and I paid my $15 co-pay at the time. The insurance company recorded that as not paying for my phantom visit, but of course the doctor's office never sent a bill because they had me down as paying that day.
So, anyone going to see Sicko?
FWIW, that sort of BS doesn't seem to have much/any impact on credit, or at least that's been our experience.
Really? I thought there's a section on your credit report for accounts sent to collection agencies.
My favorite little experience with collections was a $70 bill from fucking DHL for a review book someone sent me while I lived in Canada. Which DHL failed to tell me, when I signed for it, was gonna cost me seventy bucks. Fuckers.
Ogged you should have asked her for address and work number and then made the same accusation when she refused to provide the same.
3: Medical bills, even ones that get sent to collection, are different than regular bills. My experience is the same as DaveL's; I've had medical bills in collection that didn't show up when I ran my credit report.
My only interesting story along these lines involves a collections agency making a blatantly false claim, knowing that they were gargantuan and I was just one potentially easy mark. I had long since paid off that student loan and had well-documented proof to that effect. The collections agency started using overt intimidation tactics once I provided copies of that proof. It was as close to extortion as I expect I'll ever get.
The climax involved standing in my driveway shouting into the phone TELL ME I WIN! TELL ME I WIN! until the heavy finally said in the most acid of tones, "OK... you win." Then I got interviewed for a class-action suit against them (they routinely and knowingly pursued false claims) but nothing came of it.
6: Well, that is certainly good news if true.
Thats an awesome "Who's your daddy?!" moment, RMMP.
Totally ex recto, I believe that student loans are the same way, or was it that you lost that protection when you consolidated. Really, I am just regurgitating half-rememberd small print from 1-800-LON-SHRK and 37 metric tons of junk mail their industry sent me over the years.
I had this same thing happen, with the wrong address. What was so irritating was that they had my correct address in the system and had sent me bills for something else that I had already paid. I got called by their internal collections group (this was a large hospital) and the woman calling me actually had both addresses up there on her screen, and it never occurred to them that a bill I had paid recently from my current address was a better indicator than an unpaid bill from an address input in 2003.
I once made a credit agency stop calling (they were calling for a broke roommate about medical bills) by saying to the fellow who called, "I know you have to be a hard-ass about this but I will never let you talk to [room-mate]". And they never called again. It was weird. I felt as though I'd made this tough guy crumple and despair just by showing a little false bravado.
"Ma'am, I don't know who you are, I'm not going to give you any information."
I try to keep a stern, "Madam, you are impertinent!" handy for such occasions.
Just pay your bills, ogged, you dirtbag.
The same thing happened to me with a gym membership. The gym sent notices to a wrong address, then exercised an acceleration clause and demanded $800 right now.
11: It never showed up on my credit report but it was also something that I had paid off normally (ahead of time, actually) so it would never have shown up on my credit report anyway. It was a loan that got sold to someone else to service over the course of repayment and I never really knew how the collections people in question got the account information in the first place. (My written request for a copy of their files related to that account never earned a response. I did a little to try to chase it myself but, y'know, shit to do.) Hell, it was long enough ago that I can't remember the name of the collections agency though for a while after that, whenever anyone Googled them, the first hit was their webpage and the second was a link to a post I'd written about it on that house's group blog titled "Collections Agency X Can Bite My Ass." I'd have to go dig the xeroxes of what I faxed them out of the safe deposit box to remember their name.*
That said, a different and much larger student loan is one I skipped a few payments on a few years ago and in the time it was considered delinquent it never, ever showed up in my credit report so I think you're right.
---
* Yes, I am that anal.
Tangential: does anyone know anything about blood pressure? Specifically, if your blood pressure reading is very high for you but average for humans, should you be concerned?
3,6: We (my wife, actually) also had a long-running war with Sprint over a bogus bill that she absolutely refused to pay. Multiple contacts from collection agency until they finally got tired of it, apparently no impact on credit.
Our medical bill experience was a bunch of charges relating to an auto accident for which the hospital managed to set up two separate accounts (regular and tort or some such), leading to a long and ludicrous period of their trying to collect a several thousand dollar balance owed in one account while showing a several thousand dollar credit in the other. Good times!
Very off topic, but does anyone here know of a way to convert a .doc to a .gif without buying $39 software?
I have it on excellent information that defaulted student loans do indeed appear on one's credit report.
I don't suppose it's one of these 14 results, is it?
I don't know as much about it as I should, but the Fair Debt Collections Practices Act and Fair Credit Reporting Act offer some protection and let you get some damages if the agencies don't follow the rules.
does anyone here know of a way to convert a .doc to a .gif without buying $39 software?
See if you have a Microsoft Office Document Image Writer installed as a printer. If not, do this.
1. Go to Control panel - Printer and fax
2. Add Printer - select local printer attached then manual
3. In the port option select Document image printer writer port
4. Install a generic text only printer.
5. Right-click on the generic text/only printer driver and select properties.
6. Click on ports and select "Microsoft office document imaging driver port"
7. Click on the advanced tab and change the driver to Microsoft office document image writer
8. Click on apply and OK
Then print your document to the Image Writer, which will have you save it as a .mdi file. Open that, then save it as a .tif file. You can open a .tif file in pretty much any picture viewing program and save it as a .gif.
If you aren't running Windows, I can't help you.
18: I'm pretty sure a higher-for-you-but-normal-for-everyone-else blood pressure reading is not anything to worry about.
If it was a one-time reading, it's pretty much meaningless anyway. If you're concerned, buy one of those cheap blood pressure machines (the arm kind is more accurate than the wrist kind) and check your BP daily for a few weeks, just after you wake up, but before you crawl out of bed.
I always have a borderline-high reading (~140) when they take my BP at the doctor's office, but it's fine (~120) when I check it myself. Maybe it's the annoyance of sitting around in the waiting room.
22: Nope! That blog is long gone, though. The domain seems to have been spammer-squatted as well. Searching on the domain name pulls up nothing but some old mailing list caches that include my .sig from back then and said spammer page.
In re: things showing up or not showing up, I think the best rule of thumb regardless of what's meant to show up or not show up is that credit reports are all notoriously and crazily wrong. That's why it's best to get all three and why my mortgage lender, for instance, pulled all three and used an average of their scores (IIRC). None of mine were precisely correct.
White-coat hypertension (you get nervous in the doctor's office and it drives your BP up) happens to lots of people.
very high for you but average for humans
It depends on if you're a human. What's the bp? Anyway, I'd take it more than once, to be sure.
I've been told that the lower number is the critical one.
IIRC, anything above about 88 is borderline.
I'd guess that a significant permanent change in BP is worth looking into.
If the .doc fits on your monitor, just Print Screen, then paste into Paint.
It used to be 95/65 and now it's 118/80 which the internet says is borderline prehypertensive. Is the internet full of shit?
And I gained five pounds since my last physical two years ago.
28: But I wouldn't say that I'm nervous in medical settings. I don't flinch at shots, and I'm not at all bothered by being poked and prodded.
But my blood pressure is consistently higher when taken in a doctor's office.
120/80 is totally normal, of course, but that's gone up quite a bit, so I'd ask the doc about it; maybe it's some medication that you're on, or something that you're eating...but I have no knowledge, I'm just counseling the cautious route.
I just switched hormonal birth controls. Maybe that's it. The doc was all cheerful and didn't seem to listen when I tried to explain what my normal blood pressur
Looks like Cala just dropped dead. Time to pick up the slack, people. Teamwork!
For those still alive, I note that a quick google says that birth control pills are known to increase blood pressure in some people. I haven't read enough to know whether there are any long-term effects.
I'm not nervous in medical settings either, but it doesn't keep me from passing out when they draw my blood. Vasovagal syncope!
And yeah, Cala, good luck ever convincing any doctor that any medical complaint you have might possibly be related hormonal birth control. La la la, what did you say?..
So's your blog with the upgraded heart-starter options.
My objine is pretty good, but at four days into the new HBC, they're going to counsel waiting and seeing anyway. Especially as a student. Student medicine pretty much counsels orange juice, fluids, rest, and birth control.
Student medicine
Only if the patient is a student. If the doctor is a student, they'll be busy mispronouncing "cnidarian" as "sneedarian."
Why would the doctor be talking about jellyfish and seanemones?
118/80 isn't high. The internet is full of shit. Of course, as ogged said, if it's totally atypical for you ...
To compare, last time I had my blood-pressure checked, before some surgery I had a few months back, it was similar. Slightly lower, but not by a huge amount. The anaesthesiologist said something like, '110 over 72, you're going to live forever'.
That blog is long gone, though.
It's in the Wayback machine, but I'm not seeing that post in the archives, so it may have fallen through the cracks between spiderings.
20: Email it to me on Monday and I can run it through Sna/gIt. There's a link to my (spammable) email address on my dormant blog. Also, my last name (in that address) at gmail.
I believe wedding planning is also known to raise bp.
The real reason why higher bp from bc is a thing (I think) is that, rarely, bc can cause strokes. So if your bc is making your bp go up (gosh, this is fun to type), you might wanna try another kind--I *think* the progestin-only type is unlikely to raise bp the way that estrogen-containing stuff is, but obviously I'm not a doc.
If I had a stroke my mother would be really annoyed because I'm sure strokes aren't anywhere in the handbook . Teehee.
My old bcp didn't cause this, so I'm hoping this will go away once my body adjusts. I'll get it checked next week and see.
My old bcp was being a pain in the ass, though. Is it possible for your body to decide to hate the pill after being on it for two years?
44- if you, say, developed a rash after scuba diving. Hypothetically speaking.
The answer to your question Cala, is yes, you should definitely talk to a doctor. I always had very low blood pressure that has recently crept up into the normal range, just like yours. I thought this was no big deal, but my doctor (a great doctor) surprised me by being very concerned, noting that if it wasn't normal for me that could indicate a serious problem.
On the other hand, she told me to keep close watch on it, and that was about 18 months ago and I haven't been back to the doctor or taken my blood pressure since. And I'm still alive.
... and as I suspected, they had wrong info all over the place ...
I'm probably not sane on this topic, but this sort of stuff really aggravates me. It makes the customers (and random bystanders) into the quality control department for the bill collectors.
I'd call it fraud - an attempt to collect money by deception, by making a claim for money without having a reasonable basis for believing the debt owed.
I'd complain to your state's consumer fraud people. Not that they're likely to do anything based on one complaint, but if they get enough (10? 487? 12,965?) they might actually put a scare into folks that the medical billing people would clean up their act. That would improve the world immensely.
Yeah, the collection agency call makes little sense.
I seem to remember that such agencies are (legally) enjoined from phoning you at work, in any case. Harassment.
With respect to blood pressure, if you're normally low but now higher, of course take note.
I have routine checkups 4 times a year, and for years, upon hearing my blood pressure reading, I asked: "Is that good?" Answer: "Very!" (beaming)
The answer more recently: "It's fine."
hm. Must. Educate. Self. About. Blood Pressure readings.
On the other hand, I have the best HDL cholesterol level my doctor has ever seen. She says. I attribute this to eating lots of lentils, you vegetarian-haters. The LDL cholesterol has gone up, not drastically, but the marvelous HDL offsets it. She says. Maybe she's just in the throes of her marvel or something.
Ogged,
I've been dealing with insurance companies with my wife's ovarian cancer and it has mostly been working out. Quite a few scares over six-digit doctor bills have mellowed out over time. I think it all will work out.
I hate to sound like an insurance industry apologist, but I'd much rather deal with insurance crap than the utter uncertainty over my wife's prognosis -- she's been undergoing chemo for a majority of the 2 1/2 years since diagnosis.
I'd like to think that most insurance companies act like mine (NC/BCBS) rather than Humana (which I heard about on "Democracy Now" yesterday) and patience-plus-persistance helps more than anything else for peace of mind.
I have routine checkups 4 times a year
Jesus. Is there a particular reason for this, or are you just paranoid?
I attribute my good blood pressure to the peace of mind brought by the enjoyment of meat.
Geez, Rich, all the best to you and your wife.
My insurance company has been substantively very good. I think I've paid something like $3000 total for all my treatment, and I'll bet the pre-insurance charges have been over $100,000. There are occasional administrative issues (today's had nothing to do with my insurance company), but they've been manageable. Of course, if they have a policy of creating administrative issues in the hopes that the patients won't follow up, that's a problem.
Yeah, what's up with the four checkups, parsimon? I'll feel you up for free, if that's what you're after. And we need numbers on the HDL, so we can declare a winner. Before last year, I was at 79. Good genes should be able to beat that, so spill.
Numbers. Not memorized; I'm not going to dig through papers on my desk for you. (You've made me curious, though, so maybe I'll make a call and ask to have the most annual results sent.)
4 times/year for medication level checks, not a full physical. Just routine, normal, a pre-existing condition.
I'm pretty sure the numbers are described in different terms here -- mine was given in mmol/L not mg/dL. But last time I had a cholesterol test, admittedly about 4 years ago, I was told it was very very good. It was something like a total of under 3 mmol/L and of that there were near trace levels of LDL, the rest was HDL.
I presume that's genetic. My dad, who doesn't lead a particular healthy life, has very good cholesterol (and BP and resting heart rate) scores.
I bet you fart a lot though.
Oh, this is a reference to lentils. You fool, lentils don't make you fart. You don't know your beans. Lentils aren't even properly legumes anyway. They're grasses! I do believe.
You fool, lentils don't make you fart.
You're kidding! I very much beg to differ.
Me too, on two counts: they're legumes, and they're fart-inducing.
Okay, I'm wrong. Legumes. Making things up is a tool of the trade.
Whether your g-i tract can process things well is in some significant part a function of what you're used to eating. Since I eat a lot of legumes, I have no problem. Since I don't eat much red meat, I do have a problem there. A period of slow adjustment would correct either problem.
58: thanks for the kind thoughts...
I agree -- I wonder how many problems can be solved simply by following up on a wierd bill rather than putting off a problem, misunderstanding or misplaced digit. I spent the better part of a year untying a knot caused by multiple accounts for the same treatments (my wife accepted a position two weeks before getting her diagnosis -- her health coverage was underwritten by the same company my university used for her as a dependent). The first freak-out was unsettling, but knowing what the problem was made the subsequent incorrect statements very easy to deal with.
And what's the deal with chemo nowadays?
My wife's on her fourth-line therapy and each treatment (very two weeks) costs around $24K.
Hey, it's all free to me after I finish off my co-insurance each year, but I'm starting to freak out when I realize that if/when all turns out great with my wife that she's run out of her lifetime benefit...
i'm a vegan hater who eats lentils, i had some soup yesterday.
A hater of vegans, or a hater who happens to be vegan?
Veganism is spitting in God's eye. Repent lest He smite thee with anemia.
spitting in God's eye
It might spoil the reception.
Eh. Not a particularly good 'un. (I was trying to communicate that I was reading "God's Eye" as referrin' to "the T.V." but that would not really hold much meaning as a state of affairs, plus spitting on a t.v. would probably not really spoil the reception in a meaningful way. I guess t.v.'s nowadays haven't really got a quality named "reception", exactly.
man, i cannot wait till the mornig, when i eat some bacon. BACON.
You kids and the bacon...
i learnead to eat bacon from my papa, and he's like 80
Data point: I eat lentil soup ~four days a week, and I'm an evil vegetarian*. My doctor told me my cholesterol is—quoting directly here—"fabulous," and to tell others about my dastardly ways.
*Full disclosure: I stomp on three mice per month to keep gswift happy.
to keep gswift happy
Surely vegetarianism would not proclude hunting?
My deepest sympathies, Rich. My partner's been through breast cancer (no chemo) and colon cancer (chemo) and we're in the hoping-and-waiting stage. It's all very difficult. The uncertainty is really emotionally expensive.
We've had no complaint with BCBS, it's the providers who keep screwing things up. During the hospitalization for her most recent surgery the hospital (which was on the BCBS preferred provider list) assigned a hospitalist (who we were led to believe was on the preferred provider list). That provider then billed her (my partner) for apparently random amounts, which BCBS wouldn't pay because a whole separate deductible kicks in for non-preferred providers.
We complained to the consumer fraud division of the AG's office, who asked the corporation who assigned the hospitalist for their side of the story. They explained that it was just so hard to keep all that insurance paperwork straight. As between the patient on the morphine drip and me who was worried silly and hadn't gotten any sleep, and the large corporation who had entire departments of well slept people, I had no doubt who should bear the risk of their getting their paperwork screwed up. They wrote off the bill, but it pissed me off that they'd even try to bully her into paying.
And what's the deal with chemo nowadays?
One answer is that it's very, very profitable for oncologists, who thus have a strong incentive to push it hard and to help keep the fees up. There was a study not too long ago showing that a lot of patients were having chemotherapy up until the week they died, a time when it should have been obviously hopeless. Not, of course, that this has anything at all to do with your situation.
One answer is that it's very, very profitable for oncologists, who thus have a strong incentive to push it hard and to help keep the fees up. There was a study not too long ago showing that a lot of patients were having chemotherapy up until the week they died, a time when it should have been obviously hopeless. Not, of course, that this has anything at all to do with your situation.
Well, and no one wants to hear "this stuff probably won't save your life, but it might, but you can't have it because the chances of it helping are too small for us to think it's worth paying for", however much that makes sense from a bigger-picture perspective.
All the best to you, too, Michael.
The uncertainty is really emotionally expensive.
Truer words...
I stomp on three mice per month to keep gswift happy.
I do it for the kids. "Today's episode of Life Lessons While Waiting In The Line At Super Target features a special (albeit brief) guest appearance by Mus musculus."
Oh jeez, I didn't even read the start of Michael's post. Sympathies, crossed fingers, and hopes it works out all going in your direction.
Ugh, Michael and Rich, I so hope the treatments go well for Mrs. M and Mrs. R.
Also piling on the good wishes, Michael and Rich.
Cala, my wife's bp went completely doolally when she was in her mid 20s and trying to find a new pill because the one she was on was no good for her. Her doctor had no doubt that there was a connection. She came off oral contraception altogether and hasn't had a day's trouble with it since. Take that with as much salt as you want, it was 20+ years ago, and probably involved totally different products.
Best wishes, y'all.
NOBODY ELSE GET CANCER.
88 and 92 for me. Best of wishes.
Take that with as much salt as you want
Only don't make it too much, if you're worried about your blood pressure...
yikes. Hate to `me too' but, what LB said. 88 & 92 pretty much sum it um. Best of luck all. My family has been going through this too but in Canada, so not having to go through attendent worries & hassle with insurance companies, HMO's, etc. It doesn't look like any fun.
Again, 88 and 92. Best of luck to you guys and your families. I don't know of anything more emotionally exhausting.
Chiming in to echo 88 and 92. Fingers crossed for both of you.
My thanks for the sympathy. I'm going to take the liberty of venting some more, perhaps repititiously.
There are perverse incentives in the medical billing industry. Providers gain by billing for money they're not entitled to. Some people will pay, and it will always be the vulnerable: the uneducated, those who aren't good at reading insurance contracts and medical bills, those who need their good credit, and those who are too sick to fight.
This results in another transfer of wealth from the poor (generally) to the rich (generally) and I hate it. I somehow come all over neo-conservative and want to talk about corporate responsibility and actions having consequences and such.
It's not enough to insist on paying only what one owes: they need to lose money. There should be a penalty, as big as possible.
It's up to the educated, the articulate, people with resources and education, those who aren't actually dying right now, to put up a fight and make 'em pay. Do it for the children.
p.s. and when you sign in for medical services, if there's a provision for attorneys' fees if the debt is sent to collections, cross it out. Always.