Last year I had an emergency appendectomy, which had complications that required an ambulance trip to the hospital while I was under. A few days ago I was notified out of the blue that my credit report was changed, turns out I had an $1800 ambulance bill I didn't know about go to collections. Let's gloss over the hours on the phone with hostile debt collectors refusing to provide info and nice people at hospitals doing their best to help me piece this together, I know now how this happened but I don't know how to fix it.
Problem 1: insurance (UHC) didn't pay for the ambulance because it was out of network. I think they didn't know it was an emergency and that I had no choice of provider, the person I spoke with said I shouldn't be responsible if that's the case. I called them and they said they'll reprocess it, but it will take 15 days. Also the EOB says I have to request review within 180 days of receiving it in December, so I don't know if I'm already SOL there.
Problem 2: ambulance company (Falck, I discovered today) says they sent me 5 statements in Jan through March and had my number on the autodialer but somehow I received none of these despite their contact info being correct. No idea how this happened or if it even matters to credit agencies/debt collectors.
What I'd like is for insurance to pay collections and for the credit mark to go away. So I did my research, looks like I want to dispute it by sending certified mail with these details to the 3 credit report agencies and the debt collector. I wish I had more info from UHC before sending that letter but there's a 30 day time limit to dispute so I don't know how long I should wait considering I'm not sure exactly when that window is defined.
Has anybody dealt with anything like this before? Are these dispute letters and insurance reprocessing likely to be enough to work things out?
Problem 1: insurance (UHC) didn't pay for the ambulance because it was out of network. I think they didn't know it was an emergency and that I had no choice of provider, the person I spoke with said I shouldn't be responsible if that's the case. I called them and they said they'll reprocess it, but it will take 15 days. Also the EOB says I have to request review within 180 days of receiving it in December, so I don't know if I'm already SOL there.
Problem 2: ambulance company (Falck, I discovered today) says they sent me 5 statements in Jan through March and had my number on the autodialer but somehow I received none of these despite their contact info being correct. No idea how this happened or if it even matters to credit agencies/debt collectors.
What I'd like is for insurance to pay collections and for the credit mark to go away. So I did my research, looks like I want to dispute it by sending certified mail with these details to the 3 credit report agencies and the debt collector. I wish I had more info from UHC before sending that letter but there's a 30 day time limit to dispute so I don't know how long I should wait considering I'm not sure exactly when that window is defined.
Has anybody dealt with anything like this before? Are these dispute letters and insurance reprocessing likely to be enough to work things out?