A patient has been sued by a collection agency after refusing to pay a bill from Pacific Rim Outpatient Surgery Center of Bellingham (Wash.), according to an Aug. 19 report from NPR.
Jamie Holmes alleges that the ASC tried to make her pay for two operations when she underwent only one. In 2019, she underwent surgery to have her fallopian tubes tied, which her insurance company agreed to cover ahead of time.
During the procedure, Ms. Holmes' physician spent 15 minutes cauterizing tissue as a precaution. While the cauterization was unplanned, the surgeon finished the whole operation within the 60 minutes that had been allotted for the tubal ligation procedure alone, according to the report.
Following the procedure, she was billed a total of $9,620. After adjusting for insurance, the ASC billed Ms. Holmes $2,605. A collection agency later acquired the debt and sued her for $3,792, including interest and fees, the report said.
The ASC sent a bill suggesting Holmes underwent two separate operations, one to have her tubes tied and one to treat endometriosis, and charged $4,810 for each.
Ms. Holmes originally figured the double bill was a mistake. Her insurer, Premera Blue Cross, declined to pay for two operations, the report said.
The collection agency filed a lawsuit against Ms. Holmes in December, seeking $3,792, including interest and fees. The collection agency asked a judge to grant summary judgment, which could have allowed the company to garnish wages from Ms. Holmes' job. The judge ruled in February that the collection agency was not entitled to summary judgment because the facts of the case were in dispute.
So far, the collection agency has not proceeded with its lawsuit by seeking a trial after the judge's ruling, the report said.
Pacific Rim Outpatient Surgery Center of Bellingham has since been purchased, closed and reopened under a new name.