Complaint Review: Patient First - Glen Arm Virginia

This has been a total nightmare!

My husband and I had to take my son to Patient First Urgent Care Center on November 19,2001 for strep throat.I paid my co-pay of $10 and $8 for a prescripton on my Mastercard before I left.

Then in the month of September 2002 I recieved a letter in the mail from Recievables Management Company ( their Collection Agency they use) stating that we owed $144.09 to Patient First. I didnt understand this since I do have health insurance and all I have to pay is my co-pay for services. So, I called the Collection Agency and spoke to Mrs. Dale. She said that my insurance company didn't pay the bill( which has never happened before) and that it had been denied!

SO, I got right on the phone and called them. They could not find any information on this at all. So we made a conference call to Recievable Management Collection services to get this straightened out. The collection kept argueing that it had been denied and my insurance company continued to say they never recieved a bill. It wasn't getting resolved so I called directly to Patient First Regional Office. They couldn't even find this bill in their records!

I was very upset and told them they sent me to a collection agency and I couldnt believe they couldnt even find this bill! The rude woman said it was going to take 1 week to find it ! So after one week I never heard back from them so I called back. She said they had found it, so I called my insurance company. Once again we made a 3 way conference call to Patient First. After my insurance company and Patient First went thru codes and different info they realized what had happened!

Patient first billed the wrong place so of course it was denied and they werent paid! Patient First appologized to me and said they would have this removed from the collection agency and my husbands credit report. My insurance felt so bad for me they said they would go ahead and pay this bill so it wouldnt haunt me in the future.....although she explained they didn't have to since bills have to be submitted in a certain time frame.

I thanked them so much for this! Anyways, Patient First was paid in full on October 3,2002. I expressed again to them this needs to be removed from my husbands credit report...of course they said no problem.

My husband and I decided to purchase a new car in April of 2003. They pulled our credit report and it was still on there! This is 7 months after they promised to remove it! They said their must of been an error and that they would contact their Collection Agency again and this time it would be removed and dont worry about it.

Now here it is May 23 and my husband and I are trying to buy a house so we have our credit report pulled and to our surprise after believing Patient First and their Collection Agency ( Recivables Management Services) its STILL on the credit report!

So, I get on the phone with the collection agency (i admit I was furious at this point) and asked to speak to a supervisor after speaking to some rude woman.....she hung up on me! So i call back and ask for her name she said I don't need it and hung up once again. I called back and said if I didn't get on the phone with a Supervisor I will be calling my lawyer, she put a man thru after a few minutes of being on hold. I once again explained everything to him and he had the nerve to say whats on your credit report from us is in the past and they can't change that this had been reported!

I told him this was Patient Firsts fault to begin with and it shouldnt have even been sent to collections let alone put on my husbands credit report,this had to be removed and I refused to wait any longer for it to be done! He rudely said if I wanted to scream then I needed to goto a playground! These people dont care that is is affecting our credit score!

Then I called back to Patient First this morning and they said it had been removed in October. So once again I am telling them it hasn't. I asked to speak to a Supervisor there at Patient First and of course she is getting ready to go into a meeting! These people wont even talk to me. AFter a few minutes I called back and said I needed the number to their Superviors boss. The lady got very rude I guess because I kept calling back and said she didnt have a number and said I need to take this up with the collection agency that Patient First cant do nothing for me and slammed the phone down and hung up!

I am so furious! Can someone please tell me what I can do! I have tried to be patient and wait for this to be removed but here it is 8 months later and nothing has been done. I feel like no one even cares! they dont care that my interest rate was higher when i purchased my car becuase of them! Or that now I am trying to buy a house and I am going to get a higher interest rate due to their errors. Or what about every $12.95 I have to keep paying to check my credit report online to see if this has been removed!

If anyone knows what I can do about all this PLEASE let me know. I really dont have the money to pay a lawyer right now with us trying to buy our first home. Thanks for listening!

Misty

Baltimore, Maryland
U.S.A.