How do I effectively dispute a hospital bill, that is 5 years old?

January 19, 2007 7:58 PM

How do I effectively dispute a hospital bill, that is 5 years old?

I recieved a past due notice from a local hospital the other day. The emergency room visit that it refers to occured in 2002, and the bill in question has that date on it. On the notice, it states that my account is past due. Because I had no insurance at the time of the e-room visit, I paid the hospital off in small increments. I have not recieved any notices or correspondence from them over the past 4.5 yrs notifying me that I still owed them money, other than this first past due notice. If there were other charges that I was never billed for and they are just now getting around to billing me, isn't there any sort of "statute of limitations" or time limit that they can still bill me for this type of thing? What type of recourse do I have? What is the best and most efficient way to "fight" this? Thanks.

posted by engling to work & money (7 comments total)

Where are you located and where is the hospital in question?

How did you arrange the payment previously? Were invoices sent to your home with total amount due and you paid as much as you could afford or minimum due? Do you have invoices/canceled checks/proof of debit showing your payment?

After you assemble those documents, I'd say you start by calling the Billing Department of the hospital and ask what this is about, that your account was current as of 4.5 years ago and there had been no activity at the hospital since.
posted by jerseygirl at 8:17 PM on January 19, 2007

Yes, there are statutes of limitations on debts. However, they vary depending on which state's laws apply and what kind of debt the law considers it to be. So you'll need to check those links to figure out what the applicable SOL likely is. But keep in mind that if the supposed debt is SOL, it only means that IF they sue you, you have a defense available. It doesn't prevent them from calling you, sending you collection letters, or putting it on your credit report for 7 years.

In other words, not very useful to you.

Focus on establishing the one most salient fact: the debt was paid off. If the letter was from a collection agency NOT the hospital itself (look carefully at the letter), then use your right to demand validation of the supposed debt. Most of the time, they do the record check and quickly find out the bill was paid off. End of story.

If for some reason they claim the debt was validated, then yeah time to go back through your own records and dig up whatever you've got. Don't worry about your records being imperfect. Remember that the burden is on them to prove a debt exists.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 8:35 PM on January 19, 2007 [1 favorite]

This happened to me, I called the hospital billing department and questioned why it was years later that I am seeing a bill. The end result was the hospital dropped the issue.

Actually I asked the billing person, "Are you out of your mind? This bill is 5 years old! I'm not paying this, I don't even remember this!"
posted by JujuB at 9:14 PM on January 19, 2007

Thanks so much for the advice. To answer a few questions: I live in Boston, and the hospital is a large provider in Cambridge. Also, the letter was not from a collection agency, but from the hospital itself.
posted by engling at 10:17 PM on January 19, 2007

Does the bill indicate that you owe the full amount, or some small amount left over, that you didn't pay? if it's the full amount, do you have any evidence that you paid them some of it years ago?
posted by RustyBrooks at 11:46 PM on January 19, 2007

My partner had this same exact problem. Went to a hospital in Arizona and never received a bill, nothing was on her credit report.

So, a few questions. Is this on your credit report? If it is not, it is highly likely (if this is even a valid bill) that the hospital has already written the debt off.

You are getting the bill directly from the hospital, so maybe it is still valid. You should check what the statute of limitations is in MA. There are number of form letters I found on this website that you can send to the hospital to request info and make sure this is a valid bill.

If it is a valid bill, they will be able to send you the documentation, and it's not, then they won't have it.
posted by hazyspring at 9:39 AM on January 20, 2007

Don't call them. Write letters instead. That way you have a nice paper trail instead of some unproven phone calls.

Never ever deal with any bill collectors/etc over the phone. Do it via mail.

And.. you did actually go to the hospital, didn't you? Is there any chance that this could be a "Someone else using your SSN on hospital forms" kind of situation?
posted by drstein at 11:12 PM on January 20, 2007