SOS: Speaking of Seniors – I’m Getting Tired of This

I’m getting tired of the way a certain x-ray medical service in northwest Indiana keeps sending our clients false bills. In the last two years, I’ve helped over 50 clients get the false bills that they received from this firm cancelled.

On May 22, 2017, I helped a client with the most recent case. After I researched the problem, I wrote a firm but polite letter to the director of the x-ray medical service. Here, with a few edits to protect privacy, is that letter.

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The billing service that your firm uses has failed you again.

Your firm sent a bill to our client seeking a balance of $77.19 on ACCOUNT NUMBER XXXXX for services rendered on 01/03/2017. The date of the statement billing our client is 05/09/2017.

I checked with our client’s Medicare supplement insurance company. IT PAID THIS BILL IN JANUARY! Here are the details. The insurance company paid this bill by sending a check for payment on January 27, 2017. The check number is XXXXXXX. Your firm CASHED THAT CHECK on February 6, 2017. The check was mailed to and received at P. O. Box XXXX, Indianapolis, IN 462XX.

Your firm had the insurance company payment more than three months before you sent the false bill to our client. Please, correct this problem quickly. Our senior citizen client should not be hassled by a false bill. If you need help tracking the check in order to credit payment, contact the client’s insurance company.

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To be fair to the director of the x-ray service, he has always responded positively to my letters asking for his help to correct a problem with a bill. It is just that the billing services that the firm uses keep having bookkeeping problems. I believe that the problem lies with a lack of policing medical billing firms strictly. If there is a consistent and persistent problem with a medical billing firm because it fails to credit insurance company payments in a timely manner and repeatedly sends false bills to senior citizens on Medicare, why shouldn’t that firm be put out of business to make more room for billing services that don’t cause that problem so often?

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