OT medical billing

[JIMMIE]

I just received a letter from the billing dept of my health care provider warning me that I was three months overdue on a bill. I must regularly visit my MD every 4 months and for the past 20 years I have paid anything that the insurance did not cover at that time. This was the typical collection letter warning me that if I did nt take care of it soon it would be turned over to a collection agency, blah blah blah....moe blah and threats. Bill was for $0.05 USD

[DerbyDad03]

I worked as a teller in a commercial bank many years ago. One of my responsibilties was processing the payments for the Safe Deposit boxes.

My manager made me mail back a check that was 10 cents short of the monthly fee.

Postage at the time was 15 cents.

[hibb]

Call them and tell them you will be happy to pay them if they send you an itemized bill.

[Red Green]

hibb wrote in news:b187458b-48c7-4382-8104- [e-mail]:

... highlighting the item the nickel went toward.

[EXT]

I remember a problem someone had many years ago. He was constantly being dunned for $0.00, with threatening letters arriving regularly and unable to get it solved over the phone. He mailed a check for $0.00 with the letter and asked for a receipt. He got his receipt and the threats stopped.

[norminn]

Sounds like a computer talking....somebody keyed in the amount of your payment and made a typo.

[Frank]

Send them a check for $0.06 and drive them nuts ;)

[BobR]

You are absolutely RIGHT! The computer systems hate credits especially when they can't be applied to an open item. It will cost them a ton to straighten it out.

The real problem here though is a computer system that was programmed by a stupid committee. The system should be setup to write off anything under a couple of dollars since the price of collection far exceeds the amount that could be collected. Even if collected, the cost of applying and processing the payment is greather than the amount owed.

[Jack Hammer]

LOL No joke. I have heard that in some places if you get a traffic ticket what you do is pay the ticket but add a few dollars more. Later they will send you a check to cover the amount you over paid. If you do not cash that check then the case remains open and the traffic charge never gets applied to your record.

[Bob F]

Or, some programmer gets the extra penny credited to their account? He's been making 1000's with this scam.

[DerbyDad03]

charge never gets applied to your record.

Cite please...or at least give us the name of some of those "some places" you mentioned.

While snopes doesn't debunk it completely, they sure cast doubts on it's effectiveness.

[hrhofmann]

c charge never gets applied to your record.

The state of IL owed me $74.99 for overpayment of taxes. They sent me a check for $75.00 which I cashed. I wonder if there will ever be a day of reckoning as I showed $74.99 on my Federal income tax form as the amount IL owed me.

[George]

Or more likely its the big box syndrome. They likely spent the least amount possible to get the billing system running and there is a poorly paid minimal staff who isn't empowered to do anything.

[DerbyDad03]

fic charge never gets applied to your record.

Page 21 of the 1040 instructions states that you can round values to the nearest dollar.

Check the instructions for the IL return.

Assuming that they adopted similar "rules" as the IRS, I doubt they will come after you for the .01.

[BobR]

That too!

[BobR]

Never would have thought of that but I guess it is possible.

[Oren]

Send three 2 cent stamps back?

[DerbyDad03]

That was part of the plot of the movie Office Space.

(Warning: Contains spoilers)

[George]

Its typically done with fractions of cents. Buddy works for a major broker and they end up with a fantastically large pot each day because of the sheer volume they do and they had at least one person use a method to siphon some of it.

[Robert Neville]

It's called the salami technique and it's been around since the late 60s, if not earlier. Every auditor worth his salt checks for it and it's easily detected.