In 2017 I went the emergency room for a pregnancy related issue. I was on Medicaid at the time, but they billed me instead. I got a couple notices about it in the mail, and when I called (a couple times) I gave them my account number (or whatever number it was that they ask for!) And they said they'd fix it. When I got a final notice in the mail, I called and they told me that it probably got sent out before their system updated.
2-3 years ago, I got a call from collections about it. I called Medicaid and we called them together, and the woman from Medicaid told them that the law says they can't bill me since I'm on Medicaid, and that it is passed the time frame that they are allowed to bill Medicaid. So they need to remove it from my credit report and drop the debt.
About a year ago, I got a call from a new collections agency for the same debt. I told them what had happened and what Medicaid had said. They said that I still need to pay it. I told them they need to talk to Medicaid about it, and they took my information about it, and I didn't hear from them again.
I looked at my credit report today and it is on there again, posted this month! I plan to call them Monday and to call Medicaid and have them speak to each other like the first time, but I'm afraid of just the same thing happening again and the debt never going away. I know I should have been on it more, looking back, but I'm just now learning about stuff like this (my parents didn't teach us financial stuff because they were paranoid we would tell the other parent how much money they make, savings, etc).
So my question is, is there more that I can do about it? Someone else I can call? Or a good resource for learning about it myself? I saw a dispute option but I thought it was only for new debts, like 30 days, is that true?
Tl;dR: Medicaid told ER billing dept and Collections that this debt isn't legal and they need to drop it, but it keeps just moving to a new collections agency. What do I do?
original posted by BloodedBae to r/personalfinance on Fri, 05 Apr 2024 15:44:08 GMT.