Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in California

A large San Diego hospital refuses to refund the $5,000 credit their billing system shows for my account and will offer no date for when the refund will be issued. They also can provide no specific reason for refusing to refund the credit that has been in the account for over three weeks.

I was hospitalized at a major San Diego hospital in early April. I paid them $5,000 prior to my departure. They billed my insurance company for the entire amount and did not tell the insurance company about my $5,000 payment. My (very large) insurance company paid them in full the contracted amount. The insurance company tells me I had no deductible, co-pay, or patient responsibility. The hospital accepted the insurance payment in mid-May and now shows I have a $5,000 credit and no outstanding responsibility to them.

I have not returned to the hospital or used any of their services since I was discharged in mid-April

Three weeks after being paid by the insurance company; the hospital refuses to refund the $5,000 credit that they acknowledge my account contains. Their statement to me is that "there may have been errors made in the billing of claims to the insurance company or errors made in the insurance payment to us and until those mistakes are resolved we can not refund your $5,000."

The last claim they filed with the insurance company was in mid-April.

I have talked to three different billing personnel and supervisors in hospital billing and none of them see anything in my records indicating any "problems" or "errors" and they cannot tell me why the refund has not been issued. They find no record of any contact with the insurance company since the initial claim in mid-April

The hospital representative who sends me e-mails telling me that the hospital will not refund the money is unknown to the billing personnel I can reach via telephone. That person also says they are not currently working on my account but may do so later in June and it will take four to six weeks to determine if I am due a refund.

What can I do to recover the $5,000 credit the hospital acknowledges they are holding?

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