Insurance, part 20 (or, the end of dealing with Argent)
First note: I'm still waiting to hear back about my appeal. The deadline for the insurance company is fast approaching. I'm shocked they haven't gotten back to me yet!
Second note: I think I'm done with dealing with Argent. I settled things with them by sending them less than $12. My evaluation of them is that it's a pretty sleazy way of doing business. I know their job is to hunt down people that owe money to health care services, but they certainly have no intention of giving their victims a chance to actually figure out what's going on. They just want to get their money, and are only interested in claiming it from one source. Now that the story's been completed here, here's how it went:
1) They send me a bill, so I give them a call. They had gotten the account from the Pathologist, who had failed to send me a bill themselves (wrong address, see previous posts). Since I hadn't seen a bill from anyone I had done any business (should it really be considered 'business'?) I was hoping they could explain this to me. I asked whether they could prove to me that it was a real bill, and not just someone asking me for money. The woman on the phone started yelling at me, so I asked for the phone number of the people who had given them the bill. She claimed not to have it. At this point, I should have hung up, assuming that someone was just trying to wrangle money out of me. Luckily I didn't, and I scoured the Internet until I found the pathologist's number myself, confirming the bill.
2) I solved the issue with the pathologist, which took criminally long. During this time, I had to contact Argent again, each time they would complain that the account had been active for a long time. That was far out of my hands, though, and there was nothing I could do about that.
3) Somehow Argent reduced the total from $5-hundred-something to $4-hundred-something, and sent me another bill. I quickly responded by calling the pathologist; something was up here! They confirmed that the bill should be around $12, and promised to contact Argent and have it sorted out. They said Argent would send me another bill with the corrected amount. This was in January of 08.
4) I get a call, last week, from Argent. I called back when I got the message. "You have a bill for $12..." "Okay, I was waiting for you guys to mail me something." "We're not going to mail you for a $12 bill. It costs almost that much to mail you the bill." Are you kidding me? The guy wanted me to pay over the phone, clearly, which I wasn't about to do. The guy asked why I hadn't paid yet, and I explained that the pathologist had told me they would send me a bill. "Oh, you hadn't paid yet because they had told you that." Me: "Yes." Obviously. What else was I supposed to do? If you want me to pay a bill, send me the bill with the CORRECT AMOUNT. I should have demanded that they send me the correct bill, but the guy said I could just mail a check, so I did. Today. Now, hopefully it's over.
5) A big Screw You! to the people at Argent that tried to get me to pay these huge bills I obviously should not have been responsible for. I don't mind being hounded for money they are trying to collect, but I do mind them preventing me from resolving the issue correctly (by not giving me the pathologist's address, by sending me a bill for $4-hundred-some dollars which the pathologist didn't understand and by not sending me a bill for the actual, correct amount). Screw you.
Okay, I guess that was more than a note. It seems that I should probably send the pathologist a complaint about Argent, which they advised at one point if things were going really poorly.
Still, success: I'm done with Argent, and I resolved a $5-hundred-some bill. Sure, it was the smallest, but it was still one of the many issues I've had here. Hurrah!
-Kyle
Second note: I think I'm done with dealing with Argent. I settled things with them by sending them less than $12. My evaluation of them is that it's a pretty sleazy way of doing business. I know their job is to hunt down people that owe money to health care services, but they certainly have no intention of giving their victims a chance to actually figure out what's going on. They just want to get their money, and are only interested in claiming it from one source. Now that the story's been completed here, here's how it went:
1) They send me a bill, so I give them a call. They had gotten the account from the Pathologist, who had failed to send me a bill themselves (wrong address, see previous posts). Since I hadn't seen a bill from anyone I had done any business (should it really be considered 'business'?) I was hoping they could explain this to me. I asked whether they could prove to me that it was a real bill, and not just someone asking me for money. The woman on the phone started yelling at me, so I asked for the phone number of the people who had given them the bill. She claimed not to have it. At this point, I should have hung up, assuming that someone was just trying to wrangle money out of me. Luckily I didn't, and I scoured the Internet until I found the pathologist's number myself, confirming the bill.
2) I solved the issue with the pathologist, which took criminally long. During this time, I had to contact Argent again, each time they would complain that the account had been active for a long time. That was far out of my hands, though, and there was nothing I could do about that.
3) Somehow Argent reduced the total from $5-hundred-something to $4-hundred-something, and sent me another bill. I quickly responded by calling the pathologist; something was up here! They confirmed that the bill should be around $12, and promised to contact Argent and have it sorted out. They said Argent would send me another bill with the corrected amount. This was in January of 08.
4) I get a call, last week, from Argent. I called back when I got the message. "You have a bill for $12..." "Okay, I was waiting for you guys to mail me something." "We're not going to mail you for a $12 bill. It costs almost that much to mail you the bill." Are you kidding me? The guy wanted me to pay over the phone, clearly, which I wasn't about to do. The guy asked why I hadn't paid yet, and I explained that the pathologist had told me they would send me a bill. "Oh, you hadn't paid yet because they had told you that." Me: "Yes." Obviously. What else was I supposed to do? If you want me to pay a bill, send me the bill with the CORRECT AMOUNT. I should have demanded that they send me the correct bill, but the guy said I could just mail a check, so I did. Today. Now, hopefully it's over.
5) A big Screw You! to the people at Argent that tried to get me to pay these huge bills I obviously should not have been responsible for. I don't mind being hounded for money they are trying to collect, but I do mind them preventing me from resolving the issue correctly (by not giving me the pathologist's address, by sending me a bill for $4-hundred-some dollars which the pathologist didn't understand and by not sending me a bill for the actual, correct amount). Screw you.
Okay, I guess that was more than a note. It seems that I should probably send the pathologist a complaint about Argent, which they advised at one point if things were going really poorly.
Still, success: I'm done with Argent, and I resolved a $5-hundred-some bill. Sure, it was the smallest, but it was still one of the many issues I've had here. Hurrah!
-Kyle
posted by Kyle at 6:50 PM
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