Reminds me of a time I had already paid a hospital bill a few years back. About a year later some guy calls about another $1000+ I owe. "Ok, I paid it, but send an itemized bill," I said as I was curious as to what it was.
Got a plain paper print-out in the mail with "medical services ----- 1,234.56." He called again I said, "you're gonna have to do better than that. He never called again, it was BS. Wonder how he even got my details?
There is nothing you can do but laugh at the stupidity in medical billing. I've asked for it before like this too, and they respond with 1 line item that says "service - total". I asked "when the doctor mistakenly did that 1 test on me, was it part of the total charges" and they couldn't answer.
There are price sheets with unique codes on them that are used for billing in hospitals. These price sheets are used for a provider (hospital) to send to your payor (your insurance). They have the minimum amount of information on them to get the insurance company to pay their portion. They are not set up for the actual human being being treated to understand or find them useful. It's a systemic problem with the way the industry is configured. Good luck changing it.
When I get vague medical bills in the mail, I ask for an itemization. After about 3 times, I asked if they can flag my account as always wanting an itemization. Apparently that's impossible, so I had to call every time.
Super frustrating, but medical billing is so complex, it feels like it's intended to make the patient give up and simply accept whatever charges are present, and not even attempt to verify bills are correct.
Nobody would accept a single line bill from a mechanic for "car repairs", yet somehow that's standard for the black check of financial liability we sign up for when we see providers.
There's an incestuous infestation of debt companies of questionable ethics that sell or pass around spreadsheets of names and debts. The provenance of this data is highly suspect, but they're so used to having to act like scammers anyway, what difference does it make?
Got a plain paper print-out in the mail with "medical services ----- 1,234.56." He called again I said, "you're gonna have to do better than that. He never called again, it was BS. Wonder how he even got my details?