two rants...

[PostmodernProphet]

I won't steal LN's thread but I have two rants today.....

Rant #1: my wife had an injury to her arm last December and the doctor sent her to a physical therapist to work on it.....for six weeks she went twice a week and for a half hour he had her hold a weight in her arm and bend it back and forth.....yesterday we got a bill.....the insurance company had denied coverage do the therapist sent a bill to us.....for $2200....so six hours of her doing an unsupervised exercise was apparently worth $366 an hour.....for that, the guy could at least have sat and watched her bend her arm for a half hour, but he didn't even do that.....it's no wonder insurance is so expensive, because I am sure the insurance companies wouldn't take the time to bitch about the bill.....I intend to.....

Rant #2: I have two credit cards, one I use for work, the other personal....so I owed $4k on the work card to Discover and $100 on the personal card to Bank of America....apparently I got the wrong check in the wrong envelope....so, Bank of America takes my $4k check payable to Discover and deposits it, leaving me with a $3900 credit.....and they don't tell me about it.....so, I'm trying to use my Discover card and it isn't accepted.....and I call and find out about it......figure it out and call Bank of America and they say they want to hold my money as a credit against future use....../boggle......if I want a refund I have to send in forms and it may take 30 days.....fortunately, the check hadn't cleared the bank yet, so it was "stop payment" time......The checks are printed by computer and I checked to make sure I hadn't made an error in data entry....the check cashed by Bank of America was clearly written to Discover.......not only that, but Discover deposited the check written to Bank of America and applied that $100 to my account......how can they do that?.....

[Yurt]

2 has to be forgery...how can they sign for discover

isn't section 4 of the UCC banking?

[PostmodernProphet]

2 has to be forgery...how can they sign for discover

isn't section 4 of the UCC banking?

apparently both of them figured they could do it, because they both did....I can't wait to see if BoA tries to charge me a bad check fee on the stopped check they cashed payable to someone else....I figure they owe me the $30 I had to pay to stop the check....

[red states rule]

As far as rant # 2 - yes Bank of America can cash the check. As with most large companies no human comes in contact with your check. It is scanned and posted to your account

The onnly time anyone actually handles your check is if the machine becomes jammed, or is not read by the scanner

The same goes with the company I work for. My company has cashed cehcks that were intended to go for the light bill, and cable company.

My suggestion would be for you to pay the accounts online

[Yurt]

As far as rant # 2 - yes Bank of America can cash the check. As with most large companies no human comes in contact with your check. It is scanned and posted to your account

The onnly time anyone actually handles your check is if the machine becomes jammed, or is not read by the scanner

The same goes with the company I work for. My company has cashed cehcks that were intended to go for the light bill, and cable company.

My suggestion would be for you to pay the accounts online

is there a law for that?

[red states rule]

is there a law for that?

Law for what Yurt? If you are talking about the payee on the check, my company will post the payment regardless who the check is made payable to

As far as I know, there is no law against it. After all it was mailed to us to the payment address

It is easy for me to fix the error however

[Yurt]

accepting tender for a check not made out to you. you couldn't cash a check i made out to PMP, so i am curious if there is a rule that a bank can do this.

[red states rule]

accepting tender for a check not made out to you. you couldn't cash a check i made out to PMP, so i am curious if there is a rule that a bank can do this.

Yurt, I am not a lawyer but I am confident the legal dept for the company I work for knows what they are doing

All I know is, I have taken many calls where the h/o has sent us a check made out to someone else

In every case, I have pulled up a copy of the check, verified it has cleared, backed out the payment, and sent the h/o a refund

I have even wired the money back into theri checking account. So it is not an issue to get the money back to the customer.

It is a great way for me to get the h/o to take auto payments. We do all the work, and it costs the h/o nothing

[Nukeman]

I won't steal LN's thread but I have two rants today.....

Rant #1: my wife had an injury to her arm last December and the doctor sent her to a physical therapist to work on it.....for six weeks she went twice a week and for a half hour he had her hold a weight in her arm and bend it back and forth.....yesterday we got a bill.....the insurance company had denied coverage do the therapist sent a bill to us.....for $2200....so six hours of her doing an unsupervised exercise was apparently worth $366 an hour.....for that, the guy could at least have sat and watched her bend her arm for a half hour, but he didn't even do that.....it's no wonder insurance is so expensive, because I am sure the insurance companies wouldn't take the time to bitch about the bill.....I intend to.....OK if you have a Drs. order for the physical therapy than the insurance should cover at least SOME of the cost. I would file an appeal with your providor. A lot of times they just deny most things that are slightly out of the ordinary. that way you have to explain or get more documentation to get it covered, now about 40% of the time the patient won't do this so they just pay it and the insurance gets off without having to pay (more money for them).

IF they continue to refuse to pay approach the hospital/Phisical Therapy department and ask them what the discount is they give your provider and that you would like to settle for the same amount. If it is like MOST insurance companies the private insurance payment schedule should be in the 45-55 cents on the dollar range.. YOU should be able to pay only half if you have to pay it at all..

NEVER EVER take the first refusal to pay from ANY insurance provider. they are just feeling the waters to see if you will pay it or not. It is all a big game and if you know the rules you can play...:beer:

Keep us informed as to how things turn out!!!

[PostmodernProphet]

Dave Ramsey had a caller with a similar situation just last week.....his advice was to tell the service provider that their charges were absurd, refuse to pay them, and tell them if they sued to collect you intend to spend as much as it would cost in attorney fees to take out full page advertisements telling the public how much they tried to charge for a few minutes of work......

[Nukeman]

Dave Ramsey had a caller with a similar situation just last week.....his advice was to tell the service provider that their charges were absurd, refuse to pay them, and tell them if they sued to collect you intend to spend as much as it would cost in attorney fees to take out full page advertisements telling the public how much they tried to charge for a few minutes of work......Here's the problem, EVERYONE thinks it is the healthcare industry that makes these high cost when infact it is the insurance and government that make the cost go up. How you ask, it is quite simple.

1. the government through CMS TELLS the health care industry how much they will pay on the dollar for an exam. example. If CMS says all they will pay is 50 cents on the dollar than to make an acceptable amount off of the test so that the non payers are worked out even we have to charge 2000 dollars just to make 1000. So the price is artificialy inflated to compensate for the LOWER payment by the fed.

2. Private insurance in your area negatiates with the hospitals and Drs. offices by saying "this is what we will pay take it or leave it, or all of our customers will go to your competitor". So you ahve to take what you can get once again that is less than 50 cents on the dollar.

3. Self pay reimbursment is around 4 cents on the dollar right now... Yes I said 4 CENTS on the dollar

To tell you the truth in MOST hospitals right now today if they have a proffit of say 100 million on paper after bad debt right downs and insurance discounts it shrinks to around 35 million and out of that we have to make all of our upgrades and new equipment purchases. as you can see our global take in after write downs is 35 cents on the dollar this is real time as of Dec. 2008.

[Yurt]

Yurt, I am not a lawyer but I am confident the legal dept for the company I work for knows what they are doing

All I know is, I have taken many calls where the h/o has sent us a check made out to someone else

In every case, I have pulled up a copy of the check, verified it has cleared, backed out the payment, and sent the h/o a refund

I have even wired the money back into theri checking account. So it is not an issue to get the money back to the customer.

It is a great way for me to get the h/o to take auto payments. We do all the work, and it costs the h/o nothing

the difference is, you give the money back, pmp's situation is they will not give the money back....this is interesting

[red states rule]

the difference is, you give the money back, pmp's situation is they will not give the money back....this is interesting

He should be able to get his $100 back. Why they will not give it back is amazing

Online payments is the best way to go

[PostmodernProphet]

oh they would give it back.....2-4 weeks after I sent them some forms asking for it.....

[red states rule]

oh they would give it back.....2-4 weeks after I sent them some forms asking for it.....

Which is amazing to me. It should not take that long.

[Monkeybone]

oh they would give it back.....2-4 weeks after I sent them some forms asking for it.....

since they have credit on the card why not pay the discover card off with the BoA card? or atleast some of it

[Yurt]

check ucc 3

[Immanuel]

oh they would give it back.....2-4 weeks after I sent them some forms asking for it.....

Not likely... they will tell you they never got the forms or there are three more forms that you need to fill out and have notarized, or you didn't have the original forms notarized... some excuse or another for years.

Sorry, I am a major cynic these days.

You might laugh at this but have you asked if you can pay your Discover bill with you B of A card?

Immie

Respects to Monkeybone. I hadn't seen his post at the time I typed this

[PostmodernProphet]

since they have credit on the card why not pay the discover card off with the BoA card? or atleast some of it

and Immie who also thought of it....I wish I had talked to you guys before I called BoA.....

[red states rule]

and Immie who also thought of it....I wish I had talked to you guys before I called BoA.....

PMP - I would pay off the card, close the account, and take your business to a more customer friendly bank

[Immanuel]

Don't go to Capital One.

I had a card with them for something like 15 years. I had used it as my back up card for emergencies. Well, it seems that I had not had an emergency in three years and hadn't used my card. So, last year, 2008, one week before Christmas the S.O.B.s closed my account without so much as a warning letter. I got a letter from them three days before Christmas informing me that my account was suspended so that I could use my rewards points and in 60 days it would be closed.

Of course, I called them and asked them not to close it. Basically, they told me to get F'd.

Don't go to Capital One.

They can shove their rewards point up their... never mind.

Immie

[PostmodernProphet]

I've had my beef with Capital One as well......when my daughter turned 16 I wanted a credit card she could use to put gas in the car and I wanted a $200 limit on it so she couldn't run it up.....the very first month (because I forgot about the time lapse between bill receipt and bill pay) she went over the limit.....but instead of the card not being accepted, they charged me $39 for going over the limit.....I called them up "I wanted a card she couldn't go over, not a card you were going to charge me for LETTING her go over".....they said it was not their problem.....I said they were not my credit card company.....