4 years ago
I was billed approximately 2,800 because I was tra...
I was billed approximately 2,800 because I was transported there (while cognizant) by mistake against my will in violation of the law (I looked up the relevant laws and read the entire 40 pages of the relevant medical law and 14 pages of the major relevant billing law), and they refused to drop the bill. They did not even talk to anyone who was an attorney or had any legal background whatsoever, and refused to look into the laws whatsoever. I never signed any contract with them, which they acknowledged (they said their notes said I refused, but I was never presented with a contract).
The bill was for nothing more than a urinary drug test. I'm not exxagerating. The results showed nothing in my system, if it matters.
Doctor Albright (a body builder of about 250 lbs), the only doctor in the wing, of the night shift, said to me, "I WILL TIE YOU UP AND CHEMICALLY SEDATE YOU" (sic) (and he said this quite angrily) in response to me finally demanding to either be notified of my rights (which they refused to do) or be allowed to make a phone call (which they refused to do) or allowed to leave. Please understand, also, that this was after hours of being nothing other than polite, that I was already struggling with school and other things, even had a test and homework due the next day, during the 2nd to last week of the semester, as a difficult science major; school-work that I couldn't just "make up."
Every time I received a bill, I called or wrote a letter in response, and explained that I did not call them or request service, that their billd was actually illegimate according to the federal billing laws I'd read, and, the times I called, the person I spoke to said "okay," they understood, that they would drop the bill. Then a few months later, I receieve another bill. This happened for approximately two years. I wrote a "letter of dispute," sent certified mail, return receipt requested, which they ignored completely. 3 months after I sent the letter of dispute, I followed up by phone, and they (Kris Trotter, the one responsible for the decision, who admitted she had zero legal background) told me she had decided they DO have the legal right to bill me, and then refused to look into the laws that I quoted for them in my letter of dispute and over the phone. She admitted that she had not read the billing law I quoted in my letter of dispute. Her decision was completely arbitrary and without legal foundation.
They sent my bill to a different collection agency for some reason than the one they had originally, and when I explained the situation to them (and told them they might not want to be mixed up in the coming lawsuit), they sent the bill back to NNMC, refusing to take it. NNMC wrote it off as "charity".
A number of other more minor things happened, which I've left out.
Note, I looked into legalities such as "implied consent," etc. more than any other entitiy involved. Every single relevant law I looked into (including the medical law regarding my situation, the federal billing law regarding my situation, and the legal concepts such as "implied consent," and "unjust compensation") said, clearly, that the hospital did NOT have the right to bill me, and/or that I was NOT responsible for compensating the hospital for services.
The CEO, Mark W. Crawford (FACHE) was (finally) made aware of the actions of Dr. Albright, but his response, put bluntly, made it obvious that he had helped in constructing a big lie - while brushing off actually investigating my complaints.
Please feel free to share my review.