Edmund Dugas

Review of Asheville Radiology Associates

2 months ago, we took our son in for an ultrasound...

2 months ago, we took our son in for an ultrasound. Yesterday, we get a call out of blue saying we owe a past due balance of $78, and that the bill has been sent to collections.

We told them we'd paid the bill weeks ago, and showed them the credit card receipt. The payment processed 3 days after we received the invoice.

Like a gatekeeper trained to tell a salesperson their owner is in a meeting, the lady goes right into, "sorry, our computer system is down right now, I need to look into this and call you back."

Them telling us we'd been reported to collections was the first interaction we'd had with this business since we walked out of the office in January. They made no prior attempts to contact us. Not a piece of mail. Not a phone call.

Several hours later, we get a call back saying the oversight happened because the woman who called "doesn't really talk to the billing department." How is that a reasonable excuse for mistakenly telling someone they'd been reported to collections?

By the way, she also said it HADN'T ACTUALLY gone to collections, but to "extended billing," and that she calls it "collections" because people don't know what extended billing means.

I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that using the word "collections" is a very effective way to scare and coerce people into attention and action.

I hope they're an LLC, because when you loosely toss around the word "collections," especially when you're wrong, you expose yourself to potentially significant legal liability. It's like yelling "fire" in a crowded theater. The real "collections" is a whole different can of worms that has serious legal and financial ramifications. This isn't a game.

I told the lady this, and her disinterested patronizing reached a whole new level: "Uh huh. Uh huh. Yes, I'm typing up an email right now to our operations manager."

There's a long line of reviews from people complaining about their billing department, so it begs the question: Is Asheville Radiology Associates intentionally trying to see how many people they can trick into paying their bills twice? Who's to say this isn't intentional?

Most likely, this is just another example of a wealthy business that is desperate to put an inordinate amount of attention and resources into collecting money and preventing loss because they're paranoid over losing a penny of the obscene amount of money they already have. God forbid they use those resources to actually have their $#&% together as a business on the front end.

It's like how Wal-Mart has 3 people standing near exits and self-checkout kiosks to make sure nobody's stealing instead of using 2 of those people to actually check people out and provide customer service. They'd rather have lines 7 deep than risk someone stealing an 88 cent candy bar.

Needless to say, the cowardly excuses and lack of accountability through shameless weaseling and lip service are more than enough reason for me to to never set foot in this business again.