constanly calling about a hospital bill. but will not give me a date or dr name.
Comments
0
msthang
Afni is a low down company who also goes by the of National Recovert
0
tj
Contact the hospital directly. They should be able to look it up under patient name, whether it is hospital charges, physician services, or lab services. They, or the physician group billing office, should also be able to provide a full detailed bill for the charges sufficient to determine whether they are legitimate and owed by you, including information on what insurance claims have been submitted, contractual discounts applied, and payments made.
If you are dealing with messed up medical billing, particularly when insurance is involved, you want to force the provider to correct and get payment through the insurer, in order to force the account back from collections. Otherwise you may find yourself paying more than you owe, and with a ding on your credit due to claims errors by the provider.
If the hospital or physician is "in network", they are contractually bound to submit claims to your insurer according to their contract with your insurer, and often agreed discounrs or payment schedules apply. Bypassing payment through insurance you may already paid for can get your credit screwed.
If you have problems with a bill, contact your insurer to get them to straighten it out, as they have more clout with medical providers since they may both have contracts with them, be negotiating new contracts with them, and have a history of on-going business with them as well as knowing what is common practice in terms of rates and billing. That is what you pay for when you buy insurance.
In addition, if you have some old physician bill, even legitimate, that slipped through the cracks due to improper insurance claims, you use pressure through both your insurance company, and the hospital in which the services were performed, to pressure the physician group to both accept proper payment, and reverse negative credit reporting due to their own claim errors. You expect and demand that the hospital not only provide proper medical care, but also proper billing, and you expect that they will require the same from the professionals they allow to work there. Proper billing and claims submittal is part of the services they are providing.
Although some collecion agencies speciallizing in serving medical providers act responsibly as extensions of the provider billing department, many other collection agencies are poor at dealing with the complications of medical billing, often just repeatedly demanding payment even when there are substantial errors in the original bill.
Also be aware that AFNI in particular has a record of complaints of billing the wrong person, particularly in relation to old telecom accounts. If they are employing their commonly reported defective "skip-tracing" tactics, they may be billing you for someone else's debts. They are commonly reported to evade attempts to validate alleged debts, which may result in extracting unowed payments from the wrong people, leaving them with someone else's collection accounts on their credit reports.
0
tj
Can you post a link establishing a connection between "National Recovery" and "AFNI"?
I had reviewed my credit report and so some bogus bill on a telephone in Florida. I never lived in Florida and nevertheless know of any one who lived there. So, the F the received my information and sending me a bill for some telephone number that I never received. Now, I've trying to contact them via phone and their phone services is unavailable what a convinience for some thieves trying to get tyour money. Further, investigation should be made in reference to this agency. I am going to send them a letter and see how they are going to resolve this. I am so angry right now.
Milagros Ramos Philadelphia residence all my life.
0
tj
Based on numerous consumer complaints, AFNI is reported to routinely send collection letters to consumers who don't owe alleged debts, and put damaging collection accounts on their credit reports as well. They are also reported to evade or fail to send validation when consumers dispute alleged debts. The Minnesota Attorney General has sued them due to similar complaints by MN consumers.
Forget attempting to contact them by phone. It is of little use for asserting your federal dispute rights, and there are many consumer reports that their employees make various deceptive and illegal misrepresentations to consumers who call attempting to find out about alleged debts they know nothing about. They basically make up excuses why you owe it.
Send AFNI a letter to their main address indicating that you dispute the alleged debt they have posted on your credit report, and that you demand that they either obtain proof that you owe the debt from the original creditor, or remove their erroneous credit entry. Include a copy of the page from your credit report showing their entry, but with all other data blacked out ("redacted").
Send that letter certified return receipt requested, so you have proof of their receipt (via returned green card, or by checking the usps.gov website via tracking number). You can get their main address via their BBB report on www.bbb.org. Don't waste your time complaining to BBB in Peoria, as they are reported to be next to useless. They have actually removed their prior disclosure of the MN AG lawsuit.
When you verify they have received your letter, dispute the AFNI bogus collection account with each credit reporting agency reporting it, in writing, also sent certified return receipt requested. They must respond within 30 days of receipt (or 45 days, if your dispute is based on one of your free annual credit reports).
The credit reporting agencies are required to forward your dispute to AFNI, who must check to see if their entry is accurate, which is why you also disputed directly with AFNI. AFNI may remove the entry, notifying the credit reporting agency of their correction, in which case you have the result you want.
If AFNI "verifies" their erroneous data, which has been their most common response to disputes of their bogus debts, the credit reporting agency just forwards the results of their bogus "investigation" to you. At this point file complaints with FTC, your state Attorney General, and the Illinois Attorney General, since AFNI at this point will have "verified" inaccurate credit report data, and is now legally liable for their error.
Your regulatory complaints may achieve removal. Otherwise start looking for an attorney to sue them.
Keep track of the damages caused by their willful error, such as other creditors raising your interest rates, cutting your credit limits, closing your accounts, or refusing to open lines of credit. On any such change or notification, request from the creditor an Adverse Action Notice, which they are required by federal law to provide. It must outline the reason for the refused or reduced credit, and must identify which credit reports they pulled to make that decision.
You can use being turned down for credit, or having your credit terms degraded to obtain a free credit report from that credit reporting agency, and if it shows AFNI's erroneous entry still there, then that is supporting evidence that AFNI's "error" is the cause of damages that you seek compensation for in your lawsuit.
To find attornys who practice in FDCPA and FCRA consumer protection litigation, try: www.naca.net
It does not pay to cut corners in the above process, as you just let them off the hook, with the result that they will likely keep damaging your credit to extort payment. They get to continue in their irresponsible collection tactics largely because with most consumers there is no penalty for doing so.
Comments
If you are dealing with messed up medical billing, particularly when insurance is involved, you want to force the provider to correct and get payment through the insurer, in order to force the account back from collections. Otherwise you may find yourself paying more than you owe, and with a ding on your credit due to claims errors by the provider.
If the hospital or physician is "in network", they are contractually bound to submit claims to your insurer according to their contract with your insurer, and often agreed discounrs or payment schedules apply. Bypassing payment through insurance you may already paid for can get your credit screwed.
If you have problems with a bill, contact your insurer to get them to straighten it out, as they have more clout with medical providers since they may both have contracts with them, be negotiating new contracts with them, and have a history of on-going business with them as well as knowing what is common practice in terms of rates and billing. That is what you pay for when you buy insurance.
In addition, if you have some old physician bill, even legitimate, that slipped through the cracks due to improper insurance claims, you use pressure through both your insurance company, and the hospital in which the services were performed, to pressure the physician group to both accept proper payment, and reverse negative credit reporting due to their own claim errors. You expect and demand that the hospital not only provide proper medical care, but also proper billing, and you expect that they will require the same from the professionals they allow to work there. Proper billing and claims submittal is part of the services they are providing.
Although some collecion agencies speciallizing in serving medical providers act responsibly as extensions of the provider billing department, many other collection agencies are poor at dealing with the complications of medical billing, often just repeatedly demanding payment even when there are substantial errors in the original bill.
Also be aware that AFNI in particular has a record of complaints of billing the wrong person, particularly in relation to old telecom accounts. If they are employing their commonly reported defective "skip-tracing" tactics, they may be billing you for someone else's debts. They are commonly reported to evade attempts to validate alleged debts, which may result in extracting unowed payments from the wrong people, leaving them with someone else's collection accounts on their credit reports.
http://www.hospitalsoup.com/listing/24992-cap ... -medical-center
http://www.capitalhealth.org/
If you were dealing with emergency room services, you might have been seen by an ER MD with Emergency Medical Associates (EMA).
http://www.ema-ed.com/News-128/Emergency-Medi ... System-116.html
Milagros Ramos
Philadelphia residence all my life.
Forget attempting to contact them by phone. It is of little use for asserting your federal dispute rights, and there are many consumer reports that their employees make various deceptive and illegal misrepresentations to consumers who call attempting to find out about alleged debts they know nothing about. They basically make up excuses why you owe it.
Send AFNI a letter to their main address indicating that you dispute the alleged debt they have posted on your credit report, and that you demand that they either obtain proof that you owe the debt from the original creditor, or remove their erroneous credit entry. Include a copy of the page from your credit report showing their entry, but with all other data blacked out ("redacted").
Send that letter certified return receipt requested, so you have proof of their receipt (via returned green card, or by checking the usps.gov website via tracking number). You can get their main address via their BBB report on www.bbb.org. Don't waste your time complaining to BBB in Peoria, as they are reported to be next to useless. They have actually removed their prior disclosure of the MN AG lawsuit.
When you verify they have received your letter, dispute the AFNI bogus collection account with each credit reporting agency reporting it, in writing, also sent certified return receipt requested. They must respond within 30 days of receipt (or 45 days, if your dispute is based on one of your free annual credit reports).
The credit reporting agencies are required to forward your dispute to AFNI, who must check to see if their entry is accurate, which is why you also disputed directly with AFNI. AFNI may remove the entry, notifying the credit reporting agency of their correction, in which case you have the result you want.
If AFNI "verifies" their erroneous data, which has been their most common response to disputes of their bogus debts, the credit reporting agency just forwards the results of their bogus "investigation" to you. At this point file complaints with FTC, your state Attorney General, and the Illinois Attorney General, since AFNI at this point will have "verified" inaccurate credit report data, and is now legally liable for their error.
Your regulatory complaints may achieve removal. Otherwise start looking for an attorney to sue them.
Keep track of the damages caused by their willful error, such as other creditors raising your interest rates, cutting your credit limits, closing your accounts, or refusing to open lines of credit. On any such change or notification, request from the creditor an Adverse Action Notice, which they are required by federal law to provide. It must outline the reason for the refused or reduced credit, and must identify which credit reports they pulled to make that decision.
You can use being turned down for credit, or having your credit terms degraded to obtain a free credit report from that credit reporting agency, and if it shows AFNI's erroneous entry still there, then that is supporting evidence that AFNI's "error" is the cause of damages that you seek compensation for in your lawsuit.
To find attornys who practice in FDCPA and FCRA consumer protection litigation, try: www.naca.net
Or you might contact any of these attornys, who may be able to put you in contact with an attorney in this field:
www.pennlawyer.com
www.lawpoint.com
www.alabamaconsumer.com
It does not pay to cut corners in the above process, as you just let them off the hook, with the result that they will likely keep damaging your credit to extort payment. They get to continue in their irresponsible collection tactics largely because with most consumers there is no penalty for doing so.