Hospital made credit report inquiry??

[ecmst12]

1. Office managers and billers don't take any oath.

2. The credit check was a soft hit which did no damage to the credit rating, so no harm was done.

3. An insurance card is not a guaranty of payment. Even if they call to verify coverage, things can change and nothing is assured until the claim is submitted and the check is in the doctor's hands. And even then, payments can be taken back if a mistake is made! There is never any reason for a doctor to ASSUME your insurance will pay, and doctor's offices are expensive enough to run these days that they can't afford to take chances on providing services on patients who could easily disappear and leave bills unpaid. It's called CYA, it is a permissible purpose and I'm surprised it isn't done more. Unless the patient is paying the bill in full by cash on the date of service and submitting for reimbursement by insurance herself, then some credit is being extended.

 

[davew128]

1. Office managers and billers don't take any oath.

and from what I've observed, no accounting training either.

2. The credit check was a soft hit which did no damage to the credit rating, so no harm was done.

A soft hit doesn't damage the rating, but OP doesn't specify if it was soft or not.

3. An insurance card is not a guaranty of payment. Even if they call to verify coverage, things can change and nothing is assured until the claim is submitted and the check is in the doctor's hands. And even then, payments can be taken back if a mistake is made! There is never any reason for a doctor to ASSUME your insurance will pay, and doctor's offices are expensive enough to run these days that they can't afford to take chances on providing services on patients who could easily disappear and leave bills unpaid. It's called CYA, it is a permissible purpose and I'm surprised it isn't done more. Unless the patient is paying the bill in full by cash on the date of service and submitting for reimbursement by insurance herself, then some credit is being extended.

Ok, reality check here. Medical providers have a high level of writeoffs and delinquencies amongst the uninsured. We aren't disputing that or that within the overly broad language of the credit laws there is permissible purpose to run a credit check. That said, there is a level of good faith and COMMON SENSE that sometimes needs to prevail in this world. Are you going to tell me you think its makes sense to run a credit check on the 70 year old lady on Medicare Part B coming in for a routine first visit? What's the risk there again?

If you can show me that only soft hits are being done my opinion will soften on the matter, but if they are hard hits, I think there's a serious problem.