Just received notice from collection agency concerning a 4 yr old bill I was unaware of?

Question

I was in an auto accident in 12/03. My health insurance and auto insurance paid hospital bills, etc. I paid the balance in May, 04. Have not heard one more word even tho I still live at same address and work for same company. Now receive notice from collection agency! Could this be a scam of some type? Wouldn't the hospital try to contact me over the years if I still owed? The bill is only $150.00 but it's the principal of the thing. Do I fight it? Do I have a leg to stand on?

Thank you guys soooo much for your responses. I pay my bills and was totally shocked to receive a collection notice. And of course by the time I got home from work all the offices were closed so I couldn't call and was steaming. I was so glad to get here to vent and you nice people gave me some sound advice and encouraging words. I am making my plan of action. Thank you Thank you Thank you

Answer 1

call the collection agency and the hospital first to find out what it is really about, talking to some one may shed some light on the whole ordeal. maybe it was mix up. if it is real, you can ask nicely if you can get a discount because they have waited so long to contact you.

Answer 2

First do not call the hospital. The people above are nice to help but they do not know what they are talking about. If you were in a car accident I am guessing that you went through the ER. If that is the case, again, do not call the hospital because they have nothing to do with the bill, and if you do call them you will get nowhere but a busy tone after being tossed around. If a person is entering the ER you will receive several bills coming from different offices for all of the many different medical services that were rendered. A lot of ER are independenly owned and are contracted to gov't or private hosp. This is the case because all hospital ERs are mandated federally to provide medical service to all patients in the event that service needs to be rendered. Thus, there are companies that will handle this need for hospitals. For example one company could handle (and also bill patients) all Emergency Room physician care for a group of hospitals. Laboratory services are also very common in ER's, and that is another separate bill. A lot of hospitals use an independent contractor to handle all their labwork; this is also the same for radiology bills. These companies simply rent/lease space from the hospital. You as a patient will initially receive a comprehensive itemized bill for all services rendered, regardless of which company is billing. However any additional billing, is at the discretion of the respected company that provided you the service, not the hospital or their billing department at large. Thus you could receive a bill in the mail, that will not come from the hospital but a medical facility. Yet, you may have received the letter in the mail several months ago and thought the letter was junk mail ( I am only guessing :) Now the acct is in collection. This acct may not even be from the accident. Did you ask the collection company the exact date of service? The first thing you need to do is call this company. And ask for these things: 1. the exact date of service 2. the name and phone number of the client they are representing 3. acct number for client (not the collection acct number ) 4. any additional information about the acct before it entered the collection (if applicable)
then call the client and re-verify the acct. If you are worried about your credit report then pay the bill to the collection company and request a 'paid in full' letter FAXED after the payment has posted. If you do not want to pay over the phone then overnight a check. It is best to pay the collection company in my opinion because there will be direct records that you paid the bill to the company on that set date. If you pay the original holder of the bill, it may take a while to update the info with the collection company. And, during that period you are waiting for the pmt to post it was sent to credit report. Then you are continuing the fight because you want the item removed. What is happening now is that even old debt is being reported. Companies are being more proactive to reclaim loss revenue. Plus the seven year mark on your credit report begins when the item is place on the credit report not the date of service. So if this is not on your credit report best intererst to pay the bill, because it will evantually move to credit report. Any questions please email

Answer 3

Don't pay off a statement. Demand an itemized bill with complete charges and payments shown. Hospitals are bad about turning over bills to a collection agency for no apparent reason.

Answer 4

I would call the hospital to see if it is legit or not. If they sent it to collections, they should be able to tell you what company has it now. I've had several collection companies calling me on a bill that has been paid for over 4 years, so I believe they are a scam. It's definetly a possibility for you, I would check with the hospital.

Answer 5

Ask for the details from both collection agency & hospital first.

Ask the hospital why they do not contact you all this while & get them to prove to you that you still owe them any. Everything must be in black & white before you consider any further steps.

DO NOT pay any cents before you go through the details.

Answer 6

Contact the hospital and see if they think you owe them money. It sounds like a scam to me.

Answer 7

I would fight it. There was no prior attempt to collect from this debt.

Request to see records of your account.

Answer 8

maybe, check with whoever you made the final payment to....see if they recieved it. if it was turned over for collection, theyll tell you that too....

Answer 9

Time to pay up.