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Keller strikes again
By: The Midnight Rider
Well, 2016 is over and 2017 has just started. I was wondering what my first article would be for the New Year. Well, actually this article found me. You may remember last year, that the Rider wrote about Keller Hospital turning a friend of mine over to Collections. To refresh your memory, my friend had some tests done at Keller. They got the Bill and started paying on it each month. Then they got a phone call from a Collection Agency stating that Keller Hospital had assigned their account to them. My friend checked his account and Keller had cashed the check that he sent that very day. He is still trying to get that straightened up.
Flash forward to a couple of weeks ago. I was talking to a Keller employee who did not know who I was. I mentioned the above story to them. The employee said, “They turn their own employees over to collections.” I was flabbergasted. I thought that there was no way this was possible.
As luck would have it, I saw someone that I knew worked at Keller and mentioned it to them. They looked at me and said “yes, it is true. They did it to me.” You could have knocked me over with a feather. That is unimaginable. My friend from the original article showed me all of his paperwork where he had paid each month and then after 3 months had been turned over to Collections.
What happened to working with people? With a new hospital coming to Florence, it makes me wonder if Keller may feel the effects of it. Has Huntsville Hospital in their purchase of Keller Hospital signaled the downward spiral for Keller?
We shall see.
I am and always will be, the Midnight Rider.
*****
Our blogger J. Redmon has just recommended the food at the 2nd & 13 Sports Grille. If any of our readers are tempted to try it, you may want to wait a few days; it seems their cook was just arrested:
I'm in no way affiliated with HKH, but if I were to walk into say WalMart and they rang me up and said your total is $100, I shouldn't be able to just hand them a $20 and walk out. Oh, I'll send the rest later. HKH is a business, not a charity. If you want to call them and make payment arrangements then do so. Don't just send a partial payment and expect them to be an interest free loan service.
ReplyDeleteWe don't know all the details of the Rider's friend's hospital visit, but we do know it's common practice to make the co-pay and then wait to see what the insurance pays. Second, and we welcome comments from those who know this law, in matters of health care, a government supported entity has to take payments. Again, we say from what we know of the law. We do welcome any comments and will attempt to do some research ourselves.
DeleteYou are ignorant to the healthcare financial system Republic. I wish I was. Regional is no better and they have threatened and actually followed through on there employees. These profit seeking bottkm feaders prey off the vulnerale sick and uneducated. I have been threatened with collection from both organizations. My wifes OB sent me a $1400 bill after regional bought him from keller. I prepaid almost that for a discounted rate at the beginning of the pregnancy with the assurance that It covered everything. I paid ecm a sizeable check before i left the hospital. And i was told by both if my other secondary insurance service paid i would receive a refund. After they did both pay and being told my refund was in the mail multiple times over 3-4 months, the story changed and the billing department stated that not only would i not be reimbursed my secondary insurances payment that i now owe an additional $1400 and would be handed over to collections in a week. Flabergasted i spent 10 hours in 24 hours getting the new itemized bill sent to both insurance agencies. The rudeness during the process and being talked to like a dead beat was despicable. We planned our pregnancy, my inlaws graciously had kept a sendary bcbs policy on my wife. I had saved for the medical expenses since my wedding date. Even when losing my job one month before i was financially stable and quickly gained employment at a certain hospital. To do everything right and have that type of experience was pathetic. Sorry for the misunderstanding your prepayment was for keller and your deductible started over pay me $1400 this week or we will send you to collections... Thank you Dr keith for getting my child here safe, but you and the physicians need to pull your heads out of the sand and realize how these bottom feader collection and billing agents are treating and conducting business of your behalf. For the record $1400 wasnt the issue bc i work 5 jobs. Nor was the $600 from Helen keller out patient clinic for a cough bc they billed With a tax id They failed to put in a referal for... Another 10 hours on the phone being degraded and threatened. What inflames me is that this is being done to our friends and family. People with no knowledge of itemized bills, billing codes reimbursement, $20 for a medication bcbs would have paid $1.00- but they didnt because the office messed up on a referall. $100 for the 3 injections not the medication- $100 for the rn putiing the needle in the muscle. i could have given it myself or simply took PO? No sir Mr defender the items you buy at walmart are clearly priced and i pay as soon as i leave. The hospitals bill in code to hide what they charge for from the ignorant. They accept pennies on the dollar from insurance agencies and the gov. But if one of them doesnt pay and that bill comes to your lap get ready to pay 3-10 times what the government and bcbs deem reasonable. But my story is nothing unusual. Imagine being on a vent or undergoing treatment for a terminal disease and then hopefully not losing the battle so your family has to deal with these bottom feaders after the funeral home expenses.
ReplyDeleteIf a person has been told that payments are allowed, then this should not be going on. If there was a bill sent out and there was no inclination that payments could be made, but that a one time payment is all that is accepted, then this is completely normal. I feel for anyone who is confused and gets caught by surprise, because I've experienced this myself.
ReplyDeleteEliseo Weinstein @ JR's Bail Bonds