Hospital Sends Out Thousands of Bills in Error

Thanks to a computer glitch – that easiest of all scapegoats – thousands of former University Medical Center, a Nevada-based hospital, patients received final notices on their accounts.

Unfortunately for UMC, of the 15,000 notices sent out, most of them were to people who had already paid their bills.  In full.

The news comes at a bad time for UMC – not that there is ever a <i>good</i> time for computer errors that undermine consumer confidence.  The hospital has been making slow and shaky recovery from past medical billing issues and other sundry financial issues.  Officials at the county-run hospital are saying that this latest issue is not a sign of a larger problem, but simply a computer error.

UMC spokesperson Cheryl Persinger told Las Vegas’s “News 3” program that the mailing was supposed to be a test of new software; the notices were never supposed to be actually mailed to actual patients.

However, most former patients are running out of goodwill for UMC.  UMC had sold nearly half a billion dollars of debt to AARGON collection agency.  However, due to incorrect billing practices and accounting issues, some of the debt sold to AARGON was, actually, not debt at all – leading to frustrating calls from AARGON to frustrated patients who didn’t owe the debt.

As these most recent billing notices were sent out as part of a test, even those claiming to be “final notices” are unlikely to prove to be issues for patients and their credit.  However, with UMC, it’s usually best to hedge your bets a little.