Am I liable for a bill that I never received notice about?

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Am I liable for a bill that I never received notice about?

I visited a hospital a while ago in boulder and when they were unable to run my insurance for a service they didn’t notify me about. I talked to an individual from the hospital when I received a collections letter about the account to ask why. I was told that they sent a few statements to an old address. I left a forwarding address when I moved to prevent such a thing from happening and when I called the apartment complex they said they had that address on file. I paid off a bill from the hospital for the visit so I thought I was all good with them legally. I contacted my insurance to see if they would take it on and they said it was never filed to them the hospital said they were unable to find me even though I was covered under my fathers plan at the time. Do I have a case since I never received any notification of an error with my insurance of any statements detailing the issue?

Asked on October 13, 2016 under Bankruptcy Law, Colorado

Answers:

SJZ, Member, New York Bar / FreeAdvice Contributing Attorney

Answered 7 years ago | Contributor

If the services were rendered for you, you are responsible or liable to pay for them, even if you were not billed earlier or provided notification of a problem with billing. However, if you were covered under an insurance plan at that time, then the insurer should still pay now, even if the bill, etc. is getting to them late. Inform collections that you are submitting it to your insurer and ask them to cooperate in doing so; copy the hospital etc. (if the collections dept. is not part of the hospital; i.e. if it's a separate collections agency) on that letter, which needs to be send to everyone some way that you can track and prove delivery. Then if you were under your father's policy at the time, have him (since it was his policy) forward/submit the bill to insurance and ask the insurer what other information they need. You and/or your father may have to coordinate, etc. among the hospital and insurance, but you should be able to get the insurance to cover this, at least to whatever extent they should under the terms of the policy. Any amount not paid by insurance, you will be liable for.


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