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The breach came from American Medical Collection Agency, a debt collector that Quest uses. It's a sad statement on the state of American healthcare that 11.9 mi

The breach came from American Medical Collection Agency, a debt collector that Quest uses. It's a sad statement on the state of American healthcare that 11.9 million people can't afford to pay their lab bills.

bifrost 7y ago
They use them for billing, Medical Billing is incredibly broken so most companies outsource it.
smt88 7y ago
I was able to (and did) pay my $20 lab fee a few years ago, but the billing entity sent it to collections anyway. It took me many months to get it removed from my credit report. That we have so much fallibility in medical billing is still a sad statement, though.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Collections PSA: Collections is regulated under FDCPA/FCRA. If you as a reader are in a similar situation, please review the the below resources. Do not tolerate misreporting of information to CRAs (credit reporting agencies) by creditors, nor pursuit by collections firms. Do not communicate with phone calls or use apps to dispute. Do use certified mail return receipt for correspondence while building your paper trail. Do demand validation of an alleged debt in a timely fashion. Do file a CFPB complaint and/or consult with an attorney to sue a debt collector when warranted. https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/collections https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/collections https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-reports/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-r... (excellent resource by patio11 on how to present to CRAs and build a paper trail, although more focused on responding to identify theft) https://web.archive.org/web/20190604005100/https://www.ballardspahr.com/~/media/files/alerts/2013-07-11-cfpbletters.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20190604005100/https://www.balla... (Sample letters to respond to debt collectors) Disclaimer: Not an attorney, not your attorney.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    There should be a startup or something that you can call to get this taken care of. I bet there are a lot of people with plenty of money and no desire to deal with this stuff.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      The people who have these problems rarely have money, in my experience. Have done almost all the work pro bono (which I’m fine with, it just doesn’t scale). These are systemic issues that need addressing. Medical collections should not be a thing. Federal and state law should fiercely protect against abusive creditors and lazy credit reporting agencies.
      - avgDev 7y ago
        I'm actually thinking of starting a company to tackle this very issue. You can save ALMOST any patient money, just by getting their information, income levels, debt and sending a letter to the hospital/company. If this fails, lawyer on staff would need to write up a letter. Medical payments in the US are a joke and laughable. I have a chronic illness, so I gained some experience dealing with those snakes. Ex 1. I was charged 20k for pre-authorized procedure. After procedure insurance could not agree with the company on the payment, as average payment for such procedure is $1800(according to insurance) and insurance refused to pay. I stressed over it but didn't pay it, I was young and didnt have 20k laying around. I told the company to get lost and invited them to send my account to collections and that I will fight them in court if I had to. 7 years later I received a bill after they agreed with insurance on discounted rate for $300, at that point they started calling me again. It was too late and they could not put it on my credit report, therefore, again I explained that I will not pay as this barely covers time lost dealing with it. Bills stopped coming and they accepted defeat. Ex.2 Mother was in ER, 40 minutes for abdomen pain. 0 tests, doctor pressed her stomach and gave her high strength Tylenol. Bill total $3500, just absurd IMO. Parents are lower middle class, I sent a letter with their income, debt and some nice words. Took me about 2 hours tops to come up with it and find where to drop it off. Bill instantly reduced to $350. Healthcare prices in the US cannot be taken seriously. It is so anti-patient it is unbelievable. Go to ER and get 10 different bills. There is definitely room for a company to come in and represent patients and easily save money. Plus, patients are OFTEN billed for stuff they didn't not get. The abuse in the industry is insane. You can get double billed, there is also upcoding and unbundling, which results in higher bills.
QuercusMax 7y ago
I had a small lab bill for my daughter (right after she was born) sent to collections because the address they had on file was for a location my daughter had never lived at. My wife and I had moved 2 years prior, and somehow the lab used our old address which they got from ???. Reason #283942 that our medical system is horrendously broken in the US.
- hurrdurr2 7y ago
  Yet according to some politicians, we have the best healthcare system IN THE WORLD!
- asark 7y ago
  Three kids, pretty sure each one had something related to the birth or pregnancy care end up in collections. We could pay it all no problem and the things that went to collections were usually tiny, medical billing's just completely fucked up. You get low-hundreds (not an exaggeration) different documents, handed to you and via mail over the course of a year (9ish months + a few after, ends up close to a year), some of which are bills and some of which look like bills but say "this is not a bill" (so... why'd you send it?) and some of which are from your insurance referencing other things and blah blah blah, then you get a few that are clearly a screwup and you call the provider and they're all "LOL no your insurance got it it's fine, ignore that bill" (!?!?! seriously, dafuq, how many people just pay it and do you give them their money back unless they ask?) and of course one of those pieces of paper is gonna slip through the cracks. Insurances companies get a lot of shit, but the whole medical billing complex is rotten, top to bottom.
threezero 7y ago
American health care is in sad shape, but personally I only know of two Quest patients who were sent to collections, and both were due to incompetent communication between Quest and the insurer.
hbcondo714 7y ago
Yeah, AMCA notified Quest about this 2 weeks ago but it wasn't made public until Quest filed an "Other Event" with the SEC today: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1022079/000094787119000415/ss138857_8k.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1022079/000094787119...

bifrost 7y ago

They use them for billing, Medical Billing is incredibly broken so most companies outsource it.

smt88 7y ago

I was able to (and did) pay my $20 lab fee a few years ago, but the billing entity sent it to collections anyway. It took me many months to get it removed from my credit report. That we have so much fallibility in medical billing is still a sad statement, though.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Collections PSA: Collections is regulated under FDCPA/FCRA. If you as a reader are in a similar situation, please review the the below resources. Do not tolerate misreporting of information to CRAs (credit reporting agencies) by creditors, nor pursuit by collections firms. Do not communicate with phone calls or use apps to dispute. Do use certified mail return receipt for correspondence while building your paper trail. Do demand validation of an alleged debt in a timely fashion. Do file a CFPB complaint and/or consult with an attorney to sue a debt collector when warranted. https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/collections https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/collections https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-reports/ https://www.kalzumeus.com/2017/09/09/identity-theft-credit-r... (excellent resource by patio11 on how to present to CRAs and build a paper trail, although more focused on responding to identify theft) https://web.archive.org/web/20190604005100/https://www.ballardspahr.com/~/media/files/alerts/2013-07-11-cfpbletters.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20190604005100/https://www.balla... (Sample letters to respond to debt collectors) Disclaimer: Not an attorney, not your attorney.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  There should be a startup or something that you can call to get this taken care of. I bet there are a lot of people with plenty of money and no desire to deal with this stuff.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    The people who have these problems rarely have money, in my experience. Have done almost all the work pro bono (which I’m fine with, it just doesn’t scale). These are systemic issues that need addressing. Medical collections should not be a thing. Federal and state law should fiercely protect against abusive creditors and lazy credit reporting agencies.
    - avgDev 7y ago
      I'm actually thinking of starting a company to tackle this very issue. You can save ALMOST any patient money, just by getting their information, income levels, debt and sending a letter to the hospital/company. If this fails, lawyer on staff would need to write up a letter. Medical payments in the US are a joke and laughable. I have a chronic illness, so I gained some experience dealing with those snakes. Ex 1. I was charged 20k for pre-authorized procedure. After procedure insurance could not agree with the company on the payment, as average payment for such procedure is $1800(according to insurance) and insurance refused to pay. I stressed over it but didn't pay it, I was young and didnt have 20k laying around. I told the company to get lost and invited them to send my account to collections and that I will fight them in court if I had to. 7 years later I received a bill after they agreed with insurance on discounted rate for $300, at that point they started calling me again. It was too late and they could not put it on my credit report, therefore, again I explained that I will not pay as this barely covers time lost dealing with it. Bills stopped coming and they accepted defeat. Ex.2 Mother was in ER, 40 minutes for abdomen pain. 0 tests, doctor pressed her stomach and gave her high strength Tylenol. Bill total $3500, just absurd IMO. Parents are lower middle class, I sent a letter with their income, debt and some nice words. Took me about 2 hours tops to come up with it and find where to drop it off. Bill instantly reduced to $350. Healthcare prices in the US cannot be taken seriously. It is so anti-patient it is unbelievable. Go to ER and get 10 different bills. There is definitely room for a company to come in and represent patients and easily save money. Plus, patients are OFTEN billed for stuff they didn't not get. The abuse in the industry is insane. You can get double billed, there is also upcoding and unbundling, which results in higher bills.

QuercusMax 7y ago

I had a small lab bill for my daughter (right after she was born) sent to collections because the address they had on file was for a location my daughter had never lived at. My wife and I had moved 2 years prior, and somehow the lab used our old address which they got from ???. Reason #283942 that our medical system is horrendously broken in the US.

hurrdurr2 7y ago
Yet according to some politicians, we have the best healthcare system IN THE WORLD!
asark 7y ago
Three kids, pretty sure each one had something related to the birth or pregnancy care end up in collections. We could pay it all no problem and the things that went to collections were usually tiny, medical billing's just completely fucked up. You get low-hundreds (not an exaggeration) different documents, handed to you and via mail over the course of a year (9ish months + a few after, ends up close to a year), some of which are bills and some of which look like bills but say "this is not a bill" (so... why'd you send it?) and some of which are from your insurance referencing other things and blah blah blah, then you get a few that are clearly a screwup and you call the provider and they're all "LOL no your insurance got it it's fine, ignore that bill" (!?!?! seriously, dafuq, how many people just pay it and do you give them their money back unless they ask?) and of course one of those pieces of paper is gonna slip through the cracks. Insurances companies get a lot of shit, but the whole medical billing complex is rotten, top to bottom.

threezero 7y ago

American health care is in sad shape, but personally I only know of two Quest patients who were sent to collections, and both were due to incompetent communication between Quest and the insurer.

hbcondo714 7y ago

Yeah, AMCA notified Quest about this 2 weeks ago but it wasn't made public until Quest filed an "Other Event" with the SEC today: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1022079/000094787119000415/ss138857_8k.htm https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1022079/000094787119...