Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in North Carolina
I had an account with a medical finance company for my husband's hospital bill. Four more times, we had hospital bills & each time I asked to have the amount added to the account & they did. A few months I called to ask why I was being charged 9 finance charges each month & they said my payment was late. I got this months bill after not being late again & was told they charge finance charges twice a month. In addition, they said I do have one account but 5 different charges so each charge gets charged twice a month resulting in 9 charges each month. Is this legal & if so what do you advise I do?
2 Answers from Attorneys
This is quite confusing. I presume you have no signed agreement of the finance charges that would be levied on the outstanding balances. It is tough to know if the company is overbilling or not based on the information you have provided. My suggestion is that you ask the company to provide you a written explanation of the amount and calculation of all finance charges, late charges, etc. that are appending to each account. And from the way it sounds I wonder if there is value to having separate accounts for each hospital bill---perhaps this would make it easier to track due dates, finance charges, payments, and the overall status of each account.
I would have these charges reviewed by a patient billing advocate. Here is a link to an article that mentions a few - one of them lives in Virginia. I would contact her if you cannot find a local billing advocate. Have the bills reviewed.
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/272-39/16241-time-why-medical-bills-are-killing-us
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