Consumer complaint received 2016-03-14
Company: Health Services Asset Management, LLC.
State: WA
Product: Debt collection
Sub-product: Medical
Issue: Disclosure verification of debt
Sub-issue: Not given enough info to verify debt

Complaint:
XXXX hospital called me for consent of services, permission to treat a minor patient. I specifically said no, I refused to take financial responsibility due to the fact that both the patient just trying to get attention, she is very dramatic and stages incidents to get out of things like being grounded, and due to the fact that I could not afford what i knew would be a huge hospital bill. At that point the hospital staff must not have done anything further medicallly, as the patient later told me that the whole time all they did was have her hooked up to XXXX. She ended up being fine without any medical treatment. Therefore, it was obviously not a life or death situation and they had no right to treat the patient or bill me for any services considering that I said no on permission to treat. However, somehow they sent me a bill of over {$5000.00}! I said no I would not take financial responsibility, never signed any financial documents agreeing to pay for this, I did n't give out any personal information for billing, and yet they continue to try to collect. They even reported it to all XXXX of the credit bureaus with no verification of financial responsibility. When i called XXXX to discuss the matter with them, the woman on the phone seemed understanding and asked if I had insurance. I said yes, but what does that matter, since I did not agree to services. She said, well as you can see, we gave you a cash discount on your bill, and if we bill your insurance it will be billed from the original amount, so your insurance will cover the difference of what is left on your bill, and we can keep the cash discount on there, so your balance will be {$0.00} and you will have no out of pocket costs. Therefore, even though I still felt I did n't owe the money, I reluctantly gave them the insurance information, which is in my husband 's name. They billed the insurance, but then took the cash discount off and never put it back on! So I got a new bill still owing {$860.00}! I called up to complain and all they told me was that when they bill insurance that they are not allowed to give the cash discount, so the woman I spoke to basically lied to me to get me to give up our insurance information! I told them that I was not going to pay it and that I could not afford to pay it. She said it might go to collections then. I figured that since they did not have my social security # or even my correct date of birth, and I never signed any of the typical financial agreements, that I would be safe from it being reported to my credit. Also, when the collection company received the bill, they sent me the typical disclosure letter that I had 30 days to dispute the debt. I sent them a dispute letter stating that I did n't consent to services and never signed any financial agreements. I asked them to prove where I agreed to pay for services and to send a signed financial agreement or to cease all collection activity. They never sent me proof. All they sent was a statement of the bill. This is not valid proof. Anyone could give my name and address and say that I should be the one responsible for the bill. The patient and I do n't even have the same last name, and they do n't even have my ssn, not to mention the fact that the date of birth that they have listed on file for me is wrong. They reported me to all XXXX credit bureaus with using just my name and address, despite the fact that they never proved that I was responsible for the bill. This is illegal. Consent is required for medical evaluation and treatment of a minor, and clearly this was not a life or death situation, as the patient was fine with no life saving treatments performed.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation