Location: Chicago, IL
Apologies for the long post but I want to be as thorough as possible.
I’ve done a few telemedicine visits with a large nationwide urgent care chain. My crappy teacher health insurance didn’t cover it, but they offer a cash price which I paid for the convenience of not having to go to an urgent care with a ton of sick people. The service would not connect you with a provider until you paid the fee ($120).
Three months ago, my wife received a text from this company with an invoice for $490. The invoice had my name. Her contact info was only provided in the context of an emergency contact. The invoice had no information about the charges, just the total being billed. It was so vague I thought it was a scam.
I confirmed the correct phone number for the urgent care and had a very long and disjointed conversation with their outsourced billing department. They explained the bill was for two separate visits that they have no record of payment for. I explained that I have paid, I have receipts, and my patient portal on their website says the visits were paid in full. They settled on the problem being a glitch in their system and to disregard the bill while they handled it internally. They, of course, refused to send this in writing.
Two months ago, I received another bill. Repeat phone conversation, resent receipts and screenshots, get assured they are handling it.
Now, I’m getting emails, letters, and texts about this balance and they are threatening sending it to collections. Their billing department has done nothing. I even messaged them on LinkedIn and they provided a different email to reach out to, which I have received no response from.
So my question is, what do I do? Just keep calling? Hope they fix the problem and that they don’t send it to collections? Is this something a lawyer would help with or is it too small? Dealing with this bill is becoming a full time job and I don’t know what more I can do besides pay it so they leave me alone.