What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)?
Pennsylvania
I am the step-parent. We do not have any visitation or custody at all of the child. My husband pays an outstanding amount in child support, carries medical insurance for his child, and also is responsible for 50% of medical bills that aren't covered by insurance which is fine. The problem is that he isn't being told about these medical bills. We have been building our credit to buy a house and recently our realtor suggested we get a copy of our credit report. Turns out the medical bills have been put on his credit report because they were in collections! Apparently, the medical billing practice of the doctor is to bill the main insurer to the child's address. Well the main insurer is my husband, however his child does not live with him. So his ex is paying her half, then waiting until the rest of the bill goes into collections, then sends it to Domestic Relations. Domestic Relations then contacts him and draws up a court order for him to pay them within 10 days which he does, and he would pay them sooner if he knew of them sooner! An example would be just in November we received bills from May. Domestic Relations said typically, the custodial parent pays the bills, then mails them in for the non custodial parent to reimburst them and it gets added to their child support. But...this isn't what is happening in this case. Apparently the custodial parent has 8 months to file any unpaid medical bills. Well a doctor AT MOST will only wait about 60-75 days before sending the bill to collections. There has got to be something we can do about this...does anyone know???
Pennsylvania
I am the step-parent. We do not have any visitation or custody at all of the child. My husband pays an outstanding amount in child support, carries medical insurance for his child, and also is responsible for 50% of medical bills that aren't covered by insurance which is fine. The problem is that he isn't being told about these medical bills. We have been building our credit to buy a house and recently our realtor suggested we get a copy of our credit report. Turns out the medical bills have been put on his credit report because they were in collections! Apparently, the medical billing practice of the doctor is to bill the main insurer to the child's address. Well the main insurer is my husband, however his child does not live with him. So his ex is paying her half, then waiting until the rest of the bill goes into collections, then sends it to Domestic Relations. Domestic Relations then contacts him and draws up a court order for him to pay them within 10 days which he does, and he would pay them sooner if he knew of them sooner! An example would be just in November we received bills from May. Domestic Relations said typically, the custodial parent pays the bills, then mails them in for the non custodial parent to reimburst them and it gets added to their child support. But...this isn't what is happening in this case. Apparently the custodial parent has 8 months to file any unpaid medical bills. Well a doctor AT MOST will only wait about 60-75 days before sending the bill to collections. There has got to be something we can do about this...does anyone know???