Deadbeats

Awesome. We are deadbeats. A final notice prior to placement of our account with the financial bogeyman has arrived. Despite every effort to communicate an error on the part of our medical insurance company, the billing service for my infusions has determined that our account is far enough past due to warrant it's sale to a collection agency as of February 20th. The real fun is that the account is only showing 10% of the originally billed amount due. A computer glitch with the insurer never quite accounted for the monthly payments made on my infusions in our total out-of-pocket. So the insurance company continued to pay the claims at 90% according to our contract despite our having satisfied our full financial responsibility by August, 2008. Which means that providers kept 10% of our billed balances on their books while our accounts aged beyond the reasonable period for receipt of payment.
Two weeks ago, we were contacted by the latest in a long line of account reps and supervisors from the insurance company claiming to be able "fix" this teensy glitch. This gentleman assured me that we would not face any consequences from accounts aging to collections or denial of services due to unpaid balances on the part of Evil Insurer. Should such action be threatened, I was to call him right away. And I have called. Twice. In the last two weeks. With no response whatsoever despite Michael S.'s voicemail assuring me that he will respond within 48 hours. My original thought was to wait until April when we would reach the first anniversary of my requests that the insurance company correct their error to contact a lawyer. Yet, it begins to appear our final recourse may be on an accelerated schedule. In the meantime, we have to decide whether to begin paying the outstanding balances or allow those balances to become blots on our credit rating.
Follow-up: Still no word from Michael S., but ran across a friend's post regarding his nephew's extraordinary needs.