Received someone else's medical bill

[jgpham]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? A

Requested an itemized bill from my hospital and received my bill and a very long bill for someone else in a packet addressed to me. Just wondering what exactly I should do. Seems to me it's a breach and the other person could be owed damages / should be allowed to decide if they want to pursue something like that. How should I go about giving it to this person and documenting the breach? Pretty sure if I give it back to the hospital they'll sweep it under the rug for obvious reasons, but it's a pretty big mistake when you look at our names and one bill being short and the other a packet. Feel like there's a lot of unscrupulous/careless behavior when it comes to HIPAA stuff and it wouldn't be the worst thing for the hospital to get a kick in the ass to not send detailed medical records to random people.

 

[Zigner]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? A

Requested an itemized bill from my hospital and received my bill and a very long bill for someone else in a packet addressed to me. Just wondering what exactly I should do. Seems to me it's a breach and the other person could be owed damages / should be allowed to decide if they want to pursue something like that. How should I go about giving it to this person and documenting the breach? Pretty sure if I give it back to the hospital they'll sweep it under the rug for obvious reasons, but it's a pretty big mistake when you look at our names and one bill being short and the other a packet. Feel like there's a lot of unscrupulous/careless behavior when it comes to HIPAA stuff and it wouldn't be the worst thing for the hospital to get a kick in the ass to not send detailed medical records to random people.

How about returning it to the hospital with a note that you received it in error?

(What is up with people now-a-days? )

 

[Proserpina]

How about returning it to the hospital with a note that you received it in error?

(What is up with people now-a-days? )

1) Possible Pay-off
2) Determined to "get" the mean old 'spensive hospitals
3) Had too many Nunya vaccinations

Pick one?

 

[justalayman]

The other patient would not be due anything. The hospital may be penalized if this does rise to the level of a hipaa violation (which it appears likely).


Personally if they were my records since you cannot "unsee" what you have, I would rather remain ignorant of the issue and have the person in your position return them to the sender with explanation so they can deal with whatever failure allowed this to happen so they can correct it. If you inform the other patient now they know somebody else knows their business. They can't make you forget it so from here on they will know somebody knows their business.

 

[jgpham]

How about returning it to the hospital with a note that you received it in error?

(What is up with people now-a-days? )

I think people overseas refer to it as 'savage capitalism'. When a single night in a hospital room can ruin you financially for the next 7 years people tend not to have a lot of mercy for the hospital.

Childish taunts and emojis aside, if this happened to me I would want to be informed so I could stop using the hospital. Ignorance is bliss but when you're paying as much as Americans must for healthcare, the least you should expect is not having all your records dispersed to the winds, esp considering how ubiquitous identity theft is. Medicine has become a business, and this kind of mistake would be totally unacceptable in any other field.

Wouldn't the patient need to file the HIPAA claim and thus need proof of the breach (which the hospital will not provide should I return the bill)?

 

[Zigner]

1) Possible Pay-off
2) Determined to "get" the mean old 'spensive hospitals
3) Had too many Nunya vaccinations

Pick one?

You nailed it.

 

[justalayman]

I think people overseas refer to it as 'savage capitalism'. When a single night in a hospital room can ruin you financially for the next 7 years people tend not to have a lot of mercy for the hospital.

Childish taunts and emojis aside, if this happened to me I would want to be informed so I could stop using the hospital. Ignorance is bliss but when you're paying as much as Americans must for healthcare, the least you should expect is not having all your records dispersed to the winds, esp considering how ubiquitous identity theft is. Medicine has become a business, and this kind of mistake would be totally unacceptable in any other field.

Wouldn't the patient need to file the HIPAA claim and thus need proof of the breach (which the hospital will not provide should I return the bill)?

Yes healthcare is expensive. Find a place in the world where medical treatment comes close to the level it does here for both availability and level of technical ability without it being government subsidized that costs less. Will you find some place? Probably but I suspect not many. Many other countries are too used to their government subsidized medical benefits and never realize the true cost of their treatment. It is obviously not a a fair argument for those folks to complain about the costs of treatment in the US.

Why would anybody living in another country ever come to the US for treatment if it is not either more affordable or better treatment if less expensive or better treatment is available elsewhere? I don't know how many times I read of people coming to the US for treatment for whatever malady they have.


Now don't get me wrong. Our system isn't perfect. Hell I recall conversing with a girl on this very website where her father was going to die from cancer without treatment. He could not afford the treatment and to that date was not eligible for any welfare programs that could help him. The guy was destined to die from a very curable form of cancer (at least in the stage involved) yet could not get treated. That is tough to tell somebody; yep, that's the system and sorry but I can't point you to anybody that can help. Your dad is probably going to die and there isn't a thing anybody can do about it.


Your statement that you would refuse to use that hospital for the sole reason of the error is foolish. Apparently you are not aware of how most all of any info about you is at risk. How often do you read of some hacker accessing some private data? It's quite regular and those are only the events that get publicized. There are many that never make the news. While in a perfect world we could control our private info, the ultimate truth is our control is tenuous at best. I want my healthcare providers to be diligent in protecting my info but mistakes happen in the real world. Without know how this happened its not really appropriate to condemn them to the extent yiu are. **** happens in the real world. If you demand perfection of others, then obviously you believe you can provide perfection to others. Can you? Obviously rhetorical and obvious you can't.

 

[Just Blue]

I think people overseas refer to it as 'savage capitalism'. When a single night in a hospital room can ruin you financially for the next 7 years people tend not to have a lot of mercy for the hospital.

Childish taunts and emojis aside, if this happened to me I would want to be informed so I could stop using the hospital. Ignorance is bliss but when you're paying as much as Americans must for healthcare, the least you should expect is not having all your records dispersed to the winds, esp considering how ubiquitous identity theft is. Medicine has become a business, and this kind of mistake would be totally unacceptable in any other field.

Wouldn't the patient need to file the HIPAA claim and thus need proof of the breach (which the hospital will not provide should I return the bill)?

So pass the info on to that "injured party" ...They may sue and win 1 million dollars. That will do wonders for the cost of healthcare!!

 

[eerelations]

I could go on and on and on about the high quality of relatively-inexpensive health care in Mexico and Canada...but I won't. (Unless someone asks, of course. )

 

[justalayman]

I could go on and on and on about the high quality of relatively-inexpensive health care in Mexico and Canada...but I won't. (Unless someone asks, of course. )

Isn't Canadian medical care government subsidized?

 

[justalayman]

And are you speaking of the private healthcare in Mexico being relatively inexpensive or are you referring to the government subsidized healthcare system those that cannot afford the private system use?

 

[jgpham]

...

I didn't really want to get pulled into a philosophical debate full so someone could finger wag at me. I thought this was the "legal" section of the site.

I'll prob just mail this to the patient with a note explaining the error and leave it at that. The world isn't perfect but if I sent a customer's invoice to the wrong person and they found out I would lose their business and be facing some serious complaints and reviews. Now if that invoice had federally protected information on it, I'd probably be facing their lawyer. Oh but this is medicine so we should keep making huge exceptions bc I can go to the mayo clinic and drop a couple mil for treatment found no where else on earth.

The system isn't just not ideal, it's a ****pile unless you're rich. And I haven't even had to deal with it at all- when I said 7 years financial ruin, that's how long it takes the debts to expire from your credit history and the limit on collections. I read about the industry and have a few friends who work in it. But golly Joe, you're right this is still the best damn-tootin' nation on god's green earth bc you said so!

 

[Just Blue]

I didn't really want to get pulled into a philosophical debate full so someone could finger wag at me. I thought this was the "legal" section of the site.

I'll prob just mail this to the patient with a note explaining the error and leave it at that. The world isn't perfect but if I sent a customer's invoice to the wrong person and they found out I would lose their business and be facing some serious complaints and reviews. Now if that invoice had federally protected information on it, I'd probably be facing their lawyer. Oh but this is medicine so we should keep making huge exceptions bc I can go to the mayo clinic and drop a couple mil for treatment found no where else on earth.

The system isn't just not ideal, it's a ****pile unless you're rich. And I haven't even had to deal with it at all- when I said 7 years financial ruin, that's how long it takes the debts to expire from your credit history and the limit on collections. I read about the industry and have a few friends who work in it. But golly Joe, you're right this is still the best damn-tootin' nation on god's green earth bc you said so!

Well...You could move to another country.

 

[justalayman]

You of course are welcome to move to another country or seek your medical treatment elsewhere if you believe the US and the medical system here is , in your words, a ****pile.


Enjoy waiting in queue. I've heard some horror stories about that.


Hey, I've got to run. I've got a runny nose and I need to pop over to the clinic to get it looked at.


Oh, and 7 years to escape your debts; that varies with the state but if you are sued and there is a judgment, in some states it can last forever.

 

[Proserpina]

You nailed it.

I surely did.

It's a pity the OP is actually utterly clueless about how "it" all works. I could spend more time trying to inform the silly little thing, but I doubt he could afford my hourly bill either.