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Picture of rtquig
posted
Tonight after 5:00 pm I went thru the mail that was delivered today. There was a bill from a hospital that was dated 3/30/2001. As we look back, my son did break his finger back then. We had excellent insurance back then. My question is, would you pay that bill today 17 years later? Maybe the hospital screwed up the billing, but we don't keep records this far away from the event. And why contact us now? We have lived in the same house for 26 years now.
Are we obligated for a bill 17 years ago?
I did call their billing department which was already closed for the day.


Living the Dream
 
Posts: 4014 | Location: New Jersey | Registered: December 06, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
I believe in the
principle of
Due Process
Picture of JALLEN
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Statue Statute of limitations may have run by now.

[This auto correct is my worst enema!] Eek




Luckily, I have enough willpower to control the driving ambition that rages within me.

When you had the votes, we did things your way. Now, we have the votes and you will be doing things our way. This lesson in political reality from Lyndon B. Johnson

"Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible." - Justice Janice Rogers Brown
 
Posts: 48369 | Location: Texas hill country | Registered: July 04, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Little ray
of sunshine
Picture of jhe888
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I won't say whether you should pay the bill.

They don't seem to have a leg to stand on, should they decide to pursue this in court. The statute of limitations on that debt probably ran twelve years ago.




The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything.
 
Posts: 53121 | Location: Texas | Registered: February 10, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Little ray
of sunshine
Picture of jhe888
posted Hide Post
Hey, that JAllen is pretty smart.




The fish is mute, expressionless. The fish doesn't think because the fish knows everything.
 
Posts: 53121 | Location: Texas | Registered: February 10, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Chip away the stone
Picture of rusbro
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Hmmm. Tell them you'll pay them with the same alacrity as they billed you?

Honestly, I'd check local laws first, and if you have the law on your side tell them to pound sand. I'm all for paying what's owed, but like you said, you no longer have the records to verify.
 
Posts: 11597 | Registered: August 22, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Ammoholic
Picture of Skins2881
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They can't collect it as long as you don't make any promise to pay, that would restart the clock on the debt. If there was any way to prove it I would pay if they could prove it, but it's impossible to prove after 17 years who paid what and when. Maybe you did forget, or maybe it was already paid, who knows?



Jesse

Sic Semper Tyrannis
 
Posts: 20815 | Location: Loudoun County, Virginia | Registered: December 27, 2014Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Info Guru
Picture of BamaJeepster
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Not a chance. Throw it in the trash and forget about it. They've bought some old debt and hope you respond so they can start hounding you for it, whether you legally owe it or not.

<This is just what I would do, I'm not a lawyer>



“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
- John Adams
 
Posts: 29408 | Location: In the red hinterlands of Deep Blue VA | Registered: June 29, 2001Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Bald Headed Squirrel Hunter
Picture of Angus the Kid
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quote:
Originally posted by BamaJeepster:
They've bought some old debt


Exactly



"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss"
 
Posts: 6141 | Location: In the tent, in Houston, in Texas | Registered: October 23, 2002Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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Picture of rtquig
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For all I know, my insurance company paid the bill. We are not people that don't pay our debts.


Living the Dream
 
Posts: 4014 | Location: New Jersey | Registered: December 06, 2010Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Gone but Together Again.
Dad & Uncle
Picture of h2oys
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Virtually every insurance carrier has a 1-year max time frame for participating providers in their network to file their claim. If they go beyond that timeframe, tough luck.

That was the case 17 years ago like in your situation. I think the others are correct that they sold the debt and they are "fishing".

On another note, as a PSA, providers usually have patients sign a financial responsibility form before you get treatment. I always add a hand-written note to that form that states; "per your participating provider contract".

Not sure if it would hold up, but, that way I probably don't have to pay any balance bills, old claims, etc., as they are disallowed under their contract with the insurance carrier.
 
Posts: 3718 | Location: St. Louis, MO | Registered: November 24, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Nullus Anxietas
Picture of ensigmatic
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I would file it, for record-keeping purposes, and that's all. I wouldn't acknowledge to them I even received it.



"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system,,,, but too early to shoot the bastards." -- Claire Wolfe
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living." -- Seneca the Younger, Roman Stoic philosopher
 
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"If you’re a leader, you lead the way. Not just on the easy ones; you take the tough ones too…” – MAJ Richard D. Winters (1918-2011), E Company, 2nd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne

"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil... Therefore, as tongues of fire lick up straw and as dry grass sinks down in the flames, so their roots will decay and their flowers blow away like dust; for they have rejected the law of the Lord Almighty and spurned the word of the Holy One of Israel." - Isaiah 5:20,24
 
Posts: 11066 | Location: NW Houston | Registered: April 04, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Chip away the stone
Picture of rusbro
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quote:
Originally posted by ensigmatic:
I would file it, for record-keeping purposes, and that's all. I wouldn't acknowledge to them I even received it.


I'm not a lawyer, but that sounds like good advice to me.
 
Posts: 11597 | Registered: August 22, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Go ahead punk, make my day
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17 years?

Ah, they can eat a bag of dicks.

Not saying throw it away, but it probably looks like all the other junk mail you throw away...
 
Posts: 45798 | Registered: July 12, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Mensch
Picture of kz1000
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quote:
Statue of limitations





------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Yidn, shreibt un fershreibt"

"The Nazis entered this war under the rather childish delusion that they were going to bomb everyone else, and nobody was going to bomb them. At Rotterdam, London, Warsaw and half a hundred other places, they put their rather naive theory into operation. They sowed the wind, and now they are going to reap the whirlwind."
-Bomber Harris
 
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Tinker Sailor Soldier Pie
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I'm with Kramer. And JALLEN Wink




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Acta Non Verba
NRA Life Member (Patron)
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Men will fight and die to protect women... because women protect everything else. ~Andrew Klavan

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Posts: 30401 | Location: Elv. 7,000 feet, Utah | Registered: October 29, 2012Reply With QuoteReport This Post
safe & sound
Picture of a1abdj
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quote:
They can't collect it as long as you don't make any promise to pay, that would restart the clock on the debt.



Which is exactly why:


quote:
I would file it, for record-keeping purposes, and that's all. I wouldn't acknowledge to them I even received it.


Should they continue to press the issue you will want to respond in writing, not over the phone.


________________________



www.zykansafe.com
 
Posts: 15712 | Location: St. Charles, MO, USA | Registered: September 22, 2003Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Shit don't
mean shit
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It might have been sent by mistake. They may have run some batch process that printed it out accidentally. I am in IT and we get stuff like this from time to time. Just last week we had someone approve access to one of our systems for an employee who was no longer with the company! Someone else on my team worked it, but apparently it was "stuck" in a queue, and someone made a change that got it "unstuck". It was in that queue for 3 years!
 
Posts: 5759 | Location: 7400 feet in Conifer CO | Registered: November 14, 2006Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Banned
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Curious, what's the amount? If you want to pay it, and it's 3rd party, it's negotiable.

For me, I wouldn't pay it. The original supplier has some obligation to bill and collect in a timely manner. To stick it to you this many years later because of their own administrative shortcomings is their problem, not yours.
 
Posts: 5906 | Location: Denver, CO | Registered: September 16, 2004Reply With QuoteReport This Post
We gonna get some
oojima in this house!
Picture of smithnsig
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I had an old bill from surgery for the anesthesiologist. It was years old. I never knew about it. The only reason I found it is because my credit rating went from 845 to 680. They were sending it to my childhood address. I got it resolved. They will ding your credit.


-----------------------------------------------------------
TCB all the time...
 
Posts: 6501 | Location: Cantonment/Perdido Key, Florida | Registered: September 28, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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