THE AFTERMATH THAT IS HOSPITAL BILLING! CHAPTER ELEVEN

It was August 23, 2010 when I got my first phone call from Sharp's Customer Care department, asking if I intended to pay my $2560 share of the hospital bill.  Mind you, I still had my leg in a cast...up in the air...was off work, collecting State Disability...and I was barely able to make it to the bathroom on my walker most days.  Nice day for a collection call, eh?  And here I thought they were calling to check on my well-being!

As the conversation proceeded, I was informed that I was now 30 days past due, even though I had only received one bill.  My surgery was on June 30 and I was discharged on July 1, so it was possible that I had missed the July billing cycle...but certainly this was not intentional nor my fault.  The Sharp Customer Care lady, Farisha, continued with her spiel, ending with offering me a fairly attractive deal.  If I could pay "today", my $2560 bill would be reduced to $1792, which was almost 30% off.  Thinking that maybe I could/should take them up on this, I asked for a short reprieve to see if I could make arrangements for an interest-free balance-transfer deal from one of my credit cards, and called Discover to see if they could help.  I told Farisha I would call her back within the hour with my decision.

Discover was more than happy to help, but the caveat to receiving their interest-free balance-transfer rate was that it would take 8-13 business days to process a check to the payee. The lady at Discover, who was also named Jackie, was really helpful in telling me not to take what Sharp offered as gospel, and that there was always room to negotiate, especially on that "today" part.  So while this payment arrangement was not exactly what Sharp had offered, I decided it was worth making a counter-offer that this would be what I could deliver and when.

Next, I called Farisha back and made my counter-offer that the full discounted payment would be made, but that Sharp was going to have to be patient while the check was processed; in turn, she explained that although it was not Sharp's policy to wait for a discounted payment, she would check with her supervisor and one of them would get back to me by the close of business that day.  I waited all that day, and the next, and never received a call to let me know that they had accepted my counter-offer, so I assumed that since I had heard nothing, all was well.

And so the nightmare began...

The check was produced and sent to Sharp, but the collection calls did not stop.  Evidently, the fact that I had "counter offered" was highly unusual and someone had dropped the ball in not responding to me.  But this was not my problem.  Sharp had cashed the check for the amount of the agreed-upon settlement, and no one had told me that my payment arrangement was unacceptable to Sharp.

I investigated what I should do on-line, and found out that you have the right to tell a company to stop calling you for collections, if you put it in writing and send it certified mail.  And if you wish to dispute a hospital bill, and you duly inform them of that in writing, they cannot proceed to the next step of sending you to collections.  So that is exactly what I did, in addition to copying the CFO of Sharp Healthcare, to see if I could get a seasoned executive involved in whose bailiwick this particular matter occurred.

The first letter, which I did not send certified, fell on deaf ears; I received no response except more collections calls, now being placed by "Unavailable."  Once I realized my error, I issued a second, follow-up letter to Sharp Customer Care and copied the CFO again.  In this letter I threatened to file a complaint as to their "financial bullying" with the State Attorney General's office.

For the following couple of weeks, I continued to live in fear of what Sharp was deciding, and the calls did not stop.  I was wondering what I should do next when...

At long last, my letter was answered with a letter from Sharp saying that the bill was paid in full and that I owed no more!  Best of all, I also received a personal call from the head of that division, Dick Britigan, apologizing for the miscommunication and assuring me that there would be no more harassing calls from Sharp.

Final Score:  Sunshine Girl:  2 (I won my point.) - Sharp:  1 (They got paid what they asked to be paid.)

YES!!!