Terrie sent a message to Stephen H. Rusckowski President and Chief Executive Officer of Quest Diagnostics Email Address that said:
Dear Mr. Rusckowski:
I have been trying to take care of a bill for a year and I have not been successful, despite working through billing including speaking to supervisors my doctorâs office, and my doctorâs Quest sales rep, Martine Deschavigny. Before this escalates and is sent to collections, I am seeking your help.
The issue is that I was billed close to $1000 for a series of tests. Back in April of 2015 my insurance company, Assurant Health, rejected the bill - MIA 3662382112 - as a duplicate. That bill was recently resubmitted to the insurance company by Quest and this time it was negotiated down to $89. However, in re-evaluating the bill for payment, Assurant again refused to pay for the same reason. The insurance company is correct.
I brought a stool sample into my local Quest lab in February 2015 (the detail is relevant). All was normal. It was billed to my insurance company, Assurant Health. Being early in the year, I had not met my deductible. Assurant negotiated the bill down and I paid the balance due. Quest has record of this.
A month later, on March 26, 2015, I had my wellness colonoscopy. Some of the bills for the colonoscopy were rejected by the insurance company for a variety of reasons, such as I still hadnât met my deductible. One was rejected because the colonoscopy was marked âwellnessâ but polyps were found. (I still donât understand that one, since thatâs why one has a colonoscopy!) I was told to resubmit the bill with different coding. With all the bills, and not realizing that the February Quest bill for testing the stool sample had already been taken care of, and thinking the rejected bill was that, I asked that the doctorâs office resubmit the orders with a code that would not indicate wellness the process a Quest billing agent suggested, since there wouldnât have been the need for a stool sample study if we thought all was okay.
The submission of the new code was evidently considered a NEW request. Quest evidently took the original sample and retested it and I was billed again. (I surmise that since when I go online there is a 10/26/15 date of service with results.) But, there was never a second sample. In fact, the day Quest notes doing the test, I was having my colonoscopy. There would have been no sample to bring in! There also would have been no reason to bring in a second sample since the first one was normal.
What made the situation even more confusing is that I switched to Medicare in June of 2015. At one point Quest submitted the bill to them, which they refused since I wasnât covered by Medicare at the date of service.
I have been trying to get someone to see that even if Quest did do a second test, I should not pay for a test that was done on the same sample they already tested. It probably took close to nine months to figure out what actually happened, but I religiously called Quest every month to try to resolve this. I have all the names of who I spoke with and the dates. I am happy to send that if you need it, but I assume you have access to that in your computers.
I am requesting the $89 be taken off my bill and that I be sent documentation showing this.
I cannot afford to have my exceptional credit rating affected by something that I do not feel I owe. And, I donât have any more time or energy to put forth on this. I want to know that it is taken care of once and for all.
Thank you so much for resolving this.
Terrie
