SOS: Speaking of Seniors - Really Bad Bookkeeping

Since October 2015 I have been helping a senior citizen client from La Porte, Indiana. On March 28, 2014, I sent the following letter to a hospital to help the client get a medical bill problem corrected. With a few edits to protect our client’s privacy, here is the letter that I sent to the hospital (which is not in Indiana).

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Dear Representative,

YOUR HOSPITAL NEEDS BETTER BOOKKEEPERS AND BETTER CHECK CASHERS! I wrote to you on October 5, 2015 and even faxed that letter to your office on February 26, 2016. That letter explained why the bill that you sent our client for a balance of $2,407.08 was wrong.

Today, I received a new bill that you sent to our client which sought a revised balance of $531.52. That bill is wrong, too. It is your firm which is responsible for the balance not being zero. Here are the facts.

The balance of $19.63 for services rendered on 06/11/2015 was paid to your firm by our client’s insurance company in bulk check number xxxxxx and your firm CASHED THAT CHECK ON AUGUST 10, 2015.

The balance of $96.06 for services on 06/15/2015 and the balance of $415.83 for services on 06/25/2015 were paid to your firm by our client’s insurance company in bulk check number xxxxxx which was sent on July 31, 2015. But, your firm never cashed that check. Why? Did your banking service lose the check for you?

First of all, you got one check and cashed it but did not credit the client’s account. Then, you sent bills to our client demanding that he pay an amount that was already paid by his insurance company. To me, that seems like violations of both Medicare rules and federal law against mail fraud. The two checks that the client’s insurance company sent to you were made and sent on the same day. If you got the one, you probably got the other one, too. But, you never cashed it. You caused the problem of nonpayment. To correct YOUR mistake, I have asked the insurance company to REISSUE A CHECK. When you get it, cash it and credit our client’s account.

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All the help that I gave to our client was FREE OF CHARGE. The Medicare system is far from perfect. Mistakes and fraud happen all the time. If no one who understands how to investigate and correct the problems intervenes and helps seniors, then seniors get stuck paying bills that they really don’t owe. This insurance agency distinguishes itself from competitors by helping our senior citizen clients with such problems at no charge. We care about our senior citizen clients and we “go the extra mile” to protect them from financial harm when someone else in the Medicare system makes a mistake or attempts a fraud. Does your insurance agency give this high standard of service to its senior citizen clients? If not, why not?

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• SOS: Speaking of Seniors – Hospital Lost the Check
• SOS: Speaking of Seniors – Correcting Hospital Bills
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• SOS: Speaking of Seniors – Saved M.C. Woman Hundreds

Woodrow Wilcox is the senior medical bill problem solver at Senior Care Insurance Services in Merrillville, Indiana. That is the largest senior citizen oriented insurance agency in the Midwest. For over six years, Woodrow Wilcox has helped senior citizens with medical bill problems with Medicare and VA clinics. He has saved senior citizens over $1 million in wrongful charges. For more health care articles by Wilcox, visit www.medicareproblems.net or www.woodrowwilcox.com. © 2013 Woodrow Wilcox. Re-published here with the permission of the author.

Woodrow Wilcox

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