I had absolutely no idea how much this would cost.

[FishOil]

lol declare bankruptcy. I don't even have so much as a credit card and I'm already considering declaring bankruptcy

[FishOil]

Okay I just called my Medical Provider (Your Home Medical), and I was wrong about the 36 months. Apparently it was converted to a sale in May.

So now I'm gonna call CareCentrix and see exactly how much I owe there.

[FishOil]

Just called CareCentrix, I was way off on my estimate of 5k. I only owe them 1308. So I set up a payment plan of 54.50 every month. They said my insurance was already covering some of it, but the price is so high because my deductible sucks basically.

[MidnightOwl]

Okay I just called my Medical Provider (Your Home Medical), and I was wrong about the 36 months. Apparently it was converted to a sale in May.

So now I'm gonna call CareCentrix and see exactly how much I owe there.

Make sure you get a written statement from them. It should show how much you owed initially with a break down of exactly what each charge is for. Ie $x.xx for bipap, $x.xx for mask. It will also list things like hose, filters, etc. If you have any question about the items listed post here about it. These should now all be listed as purchase prices even though the bipap was originally a rental.

It should also show all payments already made both by you and by the insurance company. Even though you were paying as a rental originally the full amont of those payments should have been applied to the purchase price. Double check with the insurance company to make sure they are showing all the payments.

Make sure any charges for the payments you made to the collection company are also credited.

If there any charges for late fees or collection costs you may want to get someone independant to review them for you. You might owe them but it sounds like this might have been sent to collections due to DME error. I can't tell from your story. As as whole the medical profession seems to have a huge problem with billing accuracy. It's clearly something they place no priority on.

If something like this comes up again read and understand the contract before you sign anything. If you need extra time to read it - or have someone else read it - take that time - refuse delivery until you've reviewed the contract if necessary. If someone tries to pressure you into signing without reading just dig in your heels - or go elsewhere. No one ethical will tell you to sign
something without reading it. Then when you do sign insist on keeping a copy for yourself.

And if you're contacted by a collection company again the first thing you want to demand is to see the proof of the debt (ie the contract you signed) before you pay them a cent. Collectors are notorious for trying to collect on invalid debts. It's cheaper for them not to bother checking out the facts before collection so they don't.

I'm glad you've worked this out and I hope your treatment is helping you.

midnightowl

ps. If you're in the US you don't even want to think about filing bankruptcy in cases like this. It won't help you and can make things much worse. I don't know about the bankruptcy laws in other countries such as canada.

pps. Going forward you'll probably find it much much cheaper to buy replacement supplies online for cash.

[jzap]

This guy has some pretty good advice about dealing with collection agencies...

http://www.daveramsey.com/article/qa-ab ... editcards/

[FishOil]

My contract doesn't have prices or anything on it. Yeah I made the mistake of not reading it, but I just went and read it now and nowhere on it does it say how much it would cost. It's just stuff like agreeing to rent.