April 2021 by Russell E.
Doctors SEND YOUR BUSINESS ELSEWHERE....YOUR CUSTOMERS WILL THANK YOU! I received notice that my credit score had made a significant drop right as we were about to close on the refinancing of our house(4/12/2021). When I looked into the situation I found that during an oral procedure my daughter had something sent off for pathology at Heartland Pathology in Edmond. The bill was $82. The procedure was 8/2/2020. Around the same time(10/2020), we moved two doors down the road from our former address, and set up mail forwarding and notices were being sent by the postal service for change of address. Heartland had received our old address from the oral surgery facility, as well as a working CURRENT cell phone number to reach us at. Hartland said they sent three bill notices to our old address (9/16/2020; 10/21/2020; & 11/16/2020), which I do not have record of. Heartland claims they never received anything from the postal service stating a change of address or return to sender notice. According to the billing specialist, the last attempted contact from Heartland was 11/16/2020 via mail. On 2/1/2021 our account was received by a collection agency, Americollect, who says they sent a letter to our old address on 2/5/2021 and received notice that we no longer lived there and then updated their system to the new address on 2/10/2021. They however stated that they did not send any more letters to the new address once the new address was updated. THREE THINGS REALLY FRUSTRATE ME with this process. 1. Heartland admitted that they had a CURRENT PHONE NUMBER for us THAT THEY DID NOT CALL. Instead they sent it to collections. They said their policy was to not call. -(Becky in billing, who was very nice and helpful with trying to figure out what was going on today) 2. Heartland maintains that they never received a return to sender or change of address notice from the post-office, even though the collections agency was able to receive that notice after their first attempt at contact. 3. Americollect admittedly didn't send a second notice to us once they were aware of the new address? I mean, why update your system on 2/10/2021 and not send anything out as of 4/12/2021????????? WHYYYYY?????? To all of my friends in any medical practice, I would prefer you use a pathology group who cares enough about the people they serve to pick up the phone and give them a call when they can't get a hold of them. I assume you take my phone number for a reason. I don't know what other reason it would be, if not to call me if you need to get a hold of me. Please consider USEING SOMEONE OR ANYONE ELSE! and make sure they have practical and ethical collection practices instead of causing your patients stress and frustration over a bill that could have easily been paid.
