Complaint Review: North Shore / Long island Jewish

Their lab did blood work for my dr. They mailed me a bill. Unlike L****** ( well run billing ) North Shore does not assign an invoice # to a bill. L******, a competitor, assigns a 8 digit invoice #. Makes it simple when referring to a specific payment you've made or didn't make. And you recive a 17 digit confirmation # when you pay. First, it is nearly impossible to get through on their phone lines. Icalled every day for two weeks. Hold on for 15 minutes and then the line goes dead ! I wrote a letter. No response. I continued to call and be put on hold. After 15 minutes, then the recording, we're too busy, call back some other time.

One day, I finally got through to billing. It's a miracle. I explain to the person that I paid this bill. I give her the date. her answer ? Well, it says here you owe us the money. I said, yes, i know that, but I paid that bill. All they know is their service date. Will it ever occur to them that there may have been more than one service on any date ? They do not assign a specific invoice # on their bills. And they don't record how it was paid. for example, check, credit card, bank transfer. So I explained to her, I paid it with my Visa card and gave her the date. Her answer ? It says here you owe us that money. I explain again. I paid that bill two months ago. They have no record of receiving it or any way of checking. Now I call my dr. I have to drive there they say. I go wait on line. Give the info. They'll call and get bsck to me in a few days. By the way, there isn't any way on the North Shore website to dispute a bill. Everything on it is designed to lead you to pay the bill. Even if it's a duplicate bill. Just pay us again. And the billing dept. of my drs. office told me, that's what people do. They get so disgusted and are receiving threatening letters from their collection agency, so they just pay it twice. Now my dr. billing calls me. they spoke to someone with a brain at North Shore billing. They want me to print out a copy of my past visa bill where it shows the payment and the date. ok. so I do that and once again I have to use a stamp to mail it to North Shore.

NOw, they stop rebilling me. And offer no apology for dragging me through this. I swear to you all, it was like I took on a part time job. And the staff at my doctors office told me on the down low, people don't keep track of their copays. So when North Shore/ LIJ bills them twice for the same service and there isn't any invoice # to refer to , and they're confused , they just pay it again. Just think of how much money this laboratory is making from making  customers pay for THEIR billing mistakes.