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Has anyone else had issues with paying medical bills with online bill pay?


Bambam
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This is the second time I've had a medical billing department tell me my payment wasn't received when I've used my online bill pay to send them a check. These are physical checks the credit union prints and mails because they do not have an electronic relationship with that medical department. I can get a copy of the front and back of the check from the CU, so I can send that, but it is a slight hassle.   Does this happen to others or do I just have bad luck with this? I haven't had this issue with any other recipients of my online bill pay. 

In general, I prefer to pay all medical bills from my checking account so it is easier to track, but now I'm thinking I need to just go to their website and pay via CC so I have their receipt.  

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No, but I had an office once where insurance kept sending my payment to another doctor with the same last name (I think it was this doctor’s husband, actually!). That was one factor in switching practices—they kept sending us to collection.

I pay online with a CC these days. I need the receipts for our HSA, and we get points on our card that go toward extra mortgage principal payments (we reimburse ourselves from the HSA instead of using the HSA card at point of service). With our high deductible, it’s a lot of extra points.

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1 hour ago, Bambam said:

I haven't had this issue with any other recipients of my online bill pay

Does your medical bills have a different address for processing check payments? I know for local utilities, Well Fargo online bill pay is very good at that with the name of the utility and our account numbers. For other businesses that Wells Fargo does not have an established relationship with, for example paying my HOA bill, I would have to key in a lot more information and it’s easier for us to mail a check to our HOA billing department than to use online bill pay. 

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A check like that wouldn’t have the stub from the provider that goes with payment, isn’t that correct? Perhaps that’s why the payments aren’t being recorded properly.

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50 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

Does your medical bills have a different address for processing check payments? I know for local utilities, Well Fargo online bill pay is very good at that with the name of the utility and our account numbers. For other businesses that Wells Fargo does not have an established relationship with, for example paying my HOA bill, I would have to key in a lot more information and it’s easier for us to mail a check to our HOA billing department than to use online bill pay. 

They do have a different address, and I try to be very careful to enter that correctly. We are in TX, but we have to send the payments to a medical billing department in the northeast somewhere. 
And I put in the memo field the account number/name so that hopefully it will get credited to the correct account - even though that info is supposed to be on the check itself too. 

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35 minutes ago, EKS said:

A check like that wouldn’t have the stub from the provider that goes with payment, isn’t that correct? Perhaps that’s why the payments aren’t being recorded properly.

Yes, that is true, but with other providers, simply having the account number on there (which I enter when I set up the Payee info) seems to be enough that they credit the payment correctly.  Maybe those places are just smaller so it is easier? Only a few of my bills have checks printed and mailed - mostly to the garage service (probably very small) and medical places and my dentist (again, very small). Maybe the medical billing folks just have so much coming in that it is easy to get credited to the wrong accounts. 

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We havent had problems with credit card payments. I am careful to always print off receipts and check my cc statement to make sure it went through. 
 

I do not trust online bill pay via e-checks. Professionally I have read too many cases of accounting mishaps either by issuing banks, receiving accounts, or 3rd party processors.

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I would guess the issue was the check.  Not many people use checks anymore, they are processing way more digital and online payments.  I go to the medical office website and through the portal with a card or write the card number on the payment stub and I’ve never had a problem.  

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