Courtesy letter ...
Back in July I brought you the story of how the oldest boy received a “courtesy letter” from an attorney claiming the boy had an outstanding debt with some doctors group. If you remember right, the amount is less than a couple hundred dollars, but the thing about the situation is that he has no record that these folks ever did anything for him. He never did receive a bill or even a statement from this doctors group and the first contact about the alleged debt was this courtesy / demand letter from the attorney’s office.
In the country...
So what is ”good for the goose is good for the gander”, as we say in the country and so I type up a response letter for the boy and he signed it and sent it off to that attorney’s office via registered mail / return receipt. In that letter the boy made some demands of his own and set a time line out as well for a response. The attorney’s office received their letter on 08/03/18, I would have liked to see the look on their faces when they read it too.
Now he hears from...
So far he has not heard back from the attorney’s office but he has gotten a letter from a collection agency now regarding the matter. It is the collection agency that was referenced in the letter the attorney had sent saying where to send his payment to. It is almost funny that they never could contact him before but now they can, according to the one page letter the collection agency sent, they have had his “account” since early February of this year.
We verified, now pay...
The letter he got on Saturday said that they were aware that he was looking for verification that he owed that doctors group the debt, and that they had indeed verified it so he needs to pay them. Wow, I guess he should just write them a check; surely no collection agency would ever misstate anything or make a mistake right? Yea, right.
Nothing like accuracy...
For starters the letter from the attorney had the account number being one number and the letter from the collection agency had it being a different number, both very similar numbers just one account number ended in 318 and the other ended in 3118. That is close but which is correct? Could there also be a mistake in the amount owed as well?
Nothing from the attorney...
I find it interesting that the boy hasn’t received a reply from the attorney’s office yet, it maybe that the boys demands for actual proof is something that they are not used to getting in the mail. The attorney still has over a couple weeks left for them to send a reply with the documents the boy requested or to ask for an extension of the 30 day time frame. Since the attorney was only allowing him thirty days to respond thirty days seemed like a good number to give them as well.
So he waits...
So we will have to wait and see if he does get a letter of response from the attorney’s office.
In the mean time, I drafted a letter to reply to the collection agency and thanked them for acknowledging the fact that the boy is looking for proof to verify the debt.
Provide documentation...
I told them that they would also be required to provide documentation of the debt in a similar fashion as was laid out for the attorney to follow and provide. They also were extended the invitation to request more time if needed to assemble the documents, but to request it before the thirty days expires.
Just because they say he owes it isn’t enough proof to cut them a check and send it, I don’t care how many times in that letter they said they have “verified” it, they have a financial interest in collecting some money and they might just be a bunch of liars and crooks, I mean; who really knows?
So that letter will go out on Monday , registered mail of course, and the last line of the letter specifically states that if they don’t provide the documents as requested that they need to cease and desist from any further collection attempts.
Not opposed to paying...
The boy isn’t opposed to paying if he truly owes it but when the doctors group never sent an invoice or even a statement in the six months prior to sending it to collections that seems pretty odd. Then you have the collection agency themselves who have had it and never bothered to send a letter or make a phone a call so it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that he might just be being scammed.
Why wait...
Why would someone wait five or six months to try to collect a legitimate debt? Then why would they want to get an attorney involved and give the attorney a cut of the money just for sending a letter? A lot of things just don’t add up here in this scenario.
Do they seriously think that sending him this little one page correspondence is really going to change the boy’s mind and send a check? If anything, it has actually made him think that he just might be being scammed.
The boy has some experience...
He works as a manager at the local hardware store and the store has “house accounts” that can charge materials and supplies the companies need and so he knows how they send out the invoices weekly and the statement at the end of the month. The store is serving as the “bank” for these charge accounts and if they don’t pay by the 15th the account starts getting phone calls looking for when they will get paid. It is just a part of doing business the right way and the boy knows this from being a part of the process. Should the medical industry or arena be any different?
This will be an ongoing little adventure for him and so I will keep you posted as things progress.
Discussing kids and insurance...
One thing the wife and I discussed the other day was about kids and insurance, and specifically those kids that are over eighteen and still being covered on the parents’ health insurance.
This is scary...
The EDS group that the wife belongs to on Face Book had a lady tell a very interesting story about how her daughter, who was 19 at the time, and was in the hospital under their insurance policy was almost placed under guardianship of the state because the girl couldn’t make her own medical decisions and there was no medical power of attorney saying that the parents could make the decisions for her.
Not just for the elderly...
We always think of medical power of attorney for the elderly but we also need to think about children who have reached that magical age of adulthood but don’t have a spouse that is recognized in law as being able to make decisions.
More on the 19 year old...
This hospital was owned by the Mayo clinic group and come to find out they owned just about every hospital in that state. She was placed on a feeding tube and being given all kinds of sedatives to basically keep her knocked out and the parents started raising concerns that she wasn’t being cared for properly and that if they took her off the drugs and let her come to her senses she could feed herself and make her own decisions since the hospital wouldn’t let the parents be involved in the decisions.
No kidding, kidnapped...
The hospital was basically milking the insurance policy since the people had real good insurance and the hospital knew it. The father ended up actually having to kidnap his own daughter out of the hospital and ended up taking her to another state in order to get her into a hospital that would actually help her. He then also had to go to court to get the process stopped that the Mayo clinic folks had started to make her a ward of the state. You talk about a guzbucking nightmare, which is a nightmare I want no damn part of for sure.
Not legal advise...
You can be assured that there are some medical powers of attorney papers being drawn up right now that will end up being signed and notarized very shortly for our oldest boy and each of our other kids when they turn eighteen. I don’t give legal advice so I am not telling you to run out and get some papers done for you and your kids but I am telling you that you might just want to look into it before you find yourself having to kidnap your own kid and flee the state like that father had to do.
Meanwhile in Texas...
We also had a friend last year that their daughter went to Texas A&M and they had some type of situation up there at one of the dorms that placed the entire dorm on a medical quarantine and the kids were not allowed to leave or go into the building. These people’s daughter had evidently left her phone in her car when the quarantine went into place and she had no way of contacting them so the parents didn’t know if she might be the reason or have whatever was the cause of the quarantine.
None of your business...
The parents went up to the university to try and get some answers about their daughter and the university refused to tell them anything regarding their daughter because she was over 18 and they could not discuss her situation because it would be a violation of their daughter’s right to medical privacy.
Adios A&M...
Needles to say, the daughter no longer goes to Texas A & M, but that situation could occur at any university so keep that in mind as well when you are thinking about your kids being away at college. We are in an age where common sense is no longer common and so we really need to be looking at different situations and trying to figure out how to stay one step ahead of this game they seem to playing on us.
Thanks for dropping by; enjoy your Sunday.
