Doctor's Payment Question

Legally, they can send you to collections, but with most medical bills, they won't. If you have been paying monthly, you should be fine.

Hi, I agree with everyone that you really do need to contact them. Have you tried email? I've noticed that many places have email now or try using your cell in the middle of the day when you take a break from work. I, personally, hate calling billing departments so I've always written a note on the bills themselves and just mailed them back that way, if I wanted to communicate. Yes, I do add that if they want to call me, they need to do so between certain hours (and in your case I would put it sometime in the evening or on a weekend when you can really talk.)

Just make the call to cover yourself. Now I think they are happy to get any payments.

No reason to cause yourself more grief if it's preventable.

C.~
I think as long as you are making an effort and sending a payment most places are ok with that. I have found that to be true with our dr. office and hospital. best of luck to you!
~T. T. :)

Many places have 24 hour voicemail in their billing office. Try calling the number on your statement (usually there is a number for last names "A-H, "I-L" etc)Leave a brief message (include statement #) that you are paying off monthly and is there anything else you need to do in the meantime b/c you don't want to be sent to collections. I don't know the legal aspect, but I would think if you are making monthly payments they are not likely to send you to collections....hopefully not anyway.

Depending on how much you make there are programs at most hospitals/dr's offices that can help pay the bill. Most have programs that will write off part of it if you are under a certain income. Call them and find out. They can still send you to collections if you do not have an agreement with them even if you are opaying a little bit.

At the hospital I go to, they can send you to collections if they don't have you on their file as having worked with their financial counselor on a payment plan. Once you have spoken with a counselor, our hospital is VERY helpful working with you to stay out of collections, but every place is different with how they treat people.

Definitely take the 5 minutes or less to call during a lunch break to set up a payment plan.

Also, check into community assistance or financial aid programs at your hospital to see if they will either forgive some of your bill, or if you can apply for their assistance program. (Our hospital has to give a certain amount of money every year to "charity" cases.) So if your bill is high and you are struggling financially, those are a few options. Otherwise, just getting the payment plan hammered out NOW before the do send you to collections, will save you a LOT of headaches down the road.

No, legally they cannot send you to collections as long as you are paying on the bill. Check with your state to see what the base amount is as many ppl believe that as long as you pay at least $5 they can't send you to collection, but that is false, the amount is higher (I found this out the hard way). In some places, it isn't necessarily the amount but the amount of time in which you need to pay off specific amounts.

Have you tried writing a letter to set up payments? That's all you need to do. Just tell them how much a month you will be paying and sign it, that's all they need (don't put a date on when you will pay it, just how much a month you will be paying). That's what I usually do simply to avoid the billing departments ploy to try to get me to pay more than I can afford and I've not found a place yet that has turned me down because I wrote a letter. They may send a letter in response asking for more or letting you know what the base amount is that they will accept (if you wanted to pay less) or they will send a confirmation letter letting you know that what you've agreed to pay it is now in their system, but all of this can be done through corrospondance.

I have heard that sometimes you can get a discount if you are paying cash. Then again that might only apply to certain types of health providers, like chiropractors. I do believe that as long as you are in communication with the billing department and you both are on the same page about what you will be paying and when, they can't report you to a collection agency.

Technically, they CAN send you to collections, but if you've been sending them money every month I doubt that they will. If you can't get the time to call them, then i would write a note explaining your payment plan to them to pay off the bill. Sometimes they just want to know that you have a plan and that you're following it.

Good luck!

Before sending you to collections they usually call to see if you want to pay in full or set up a payment plan, BUT not everyone does that so YOU have to be very poractive in calling them... I would call during a break (lunch, smoke whatever) and get it done because it will get nasty quickly if you don't set up a payment plan.

I paid a doc bill in full but two days late, guess what they had already sent paperwork to the collectors to get their money. The doc office did not contact me first so they may not waste any time. It took me three months to get is sorted out even though I had already paid and I got phone calls almost every day trying to collect on something I already paid.

I am not sure of the fine print if they can really have such a fast turn around to send you to the collections that quicky. They just want their money. So make the time, you get a break at work at some point so do it before it gets messy.

C., I work for a large hospital group in Milwaukee, WI. Our policy is to send letters asking for payment in full for 120 days, at which time the balance remaining is sent to collections.
If a patient is making payments on their own without an established payment plan, this is still the policy.
If a patient calls to make payment arrangments, we follow one of 2 paths - if the payments can resolve the balance in 12 months or less, the account is monitored "in-house". Failure to make payments results in collections.
If the payments will take greater than 12 months, we send the account to a collection agency for monitoring. It does not get recorded as an outstanding, uncollected balance, but it does go on a patients credit history as a balance in good standing being paid down, much like a credit card or utility bill.
I hope this helps. I urge you to contact the office & set up a plan before they have sent the account to collections.
Despite what was written by others, accounts can & are sent to collections even if payments are being made, when those payments are not part of an agreement being monitored by the billing office.
Good luck! T.