Ambulance Bill

Hi, I am from Nothern California. I got a car accident in February 2005 and was taken by ambulance to the local hospital. I have medical insurance with Kaiser Permanente, which has paid my medical bills from the hospital I was taken into. 3 months later I got calls from a collection agency in connection with unpaid ambulance service. I moved to a different address 2 months after the accident and I never got any bills from the ambulance company. I provided my medical insurance number to the collection agency to bill them. Afterwards, I never got any calls from the collection agency until 2 months ago. I was unpleasantly surprised and got so angry that they didn't take care of the claims properly and waited for 3 years to follow up with me again. I called my insurance provider and they said they never got any claims for ambulance, therefore, I asked them why. Apparently they never billed my medical insurance company for the ambulance. After few conversations with different people in the collection companies, they took (again) my medical insurance number and billed my medical insurance company, which rejected the claims due to overdue period of claims. I never provided my social security number during the accident, therefore, I suspect they don't have it in their records. I checked my credit records and there is no collections. What should I do? It's obvious that the neglect came from them not me.

[Amir Mostafaie]

Dear Antonij,

From the facts provided, I don't see negligence on your part. According to your posting, the collection agency initially contacted you 3 months after your accident (May of 2005). You would have a solid case if you have documentation that shows you provided your insurance information to the collection agency in May of 2005 when the collection agency contacted you first.

Sincerely,

Amir Mostafaie  

[Antonij]

Hi Amir, thanks for your answer. Unfortunately I don't have any documentation to prove that as I provided all information by the phone. I was forcing them to give the name of the ambulance service provider to find out why I never got the bills but they refused to disclose. So I called all ambulance service providers in the bay area but none of them has any records. Then I found out it's actually Ambulance Medical Respond, so I called their billing department in Colorado to find out but they refused to discuss it with me as the billing has been transfered to collection agency.