I’ve had billing issues with my vet practice twice in the past. For reference, I used a large practice with multiple vets, its own clinic/office building and a sizeable administrative staff with a very good reputation in the area. Not going to name names, as I always had a great clinical experience with the vets and would continue to use them if I still had horses, just with immaculate treatment and payment records on my end.
I received all of my invoices via email. The incorrect bill came a few months after I moved barns. I got a bill for a farm call, exam, and 60 tabs of Previcox (plus interest charges as apparently the bill was about 60 days old - this was my first invoice received). I reached out to them right away to let them know this wasn’t my horse and my horse wasn’t even kept on the property anymore.
The second bill came after my mare had to be euthanized due to severe illness. I knew this bill was coming, obviously and that it was going to be a monster - but when it didn’t arrive after 30 days, I did think it was odd and made a note with myself to follow up with them. They had actually sent me a sympathy card in the mail, but no final bill. Then, about a week later the Friday before a holiday weekend, the vet office billing person calls me to ask if I want to apply for CareCredit. Um…I don’t know, how much do I owe you guys? She says she wanted to call because she noticed I had a large balance on my account that hadn’t been paid in over 30 days. I told them I’d never received a bill, and to please send me an invoice for the charges and I’d gladly pay them. She tells me she sent one on date month before this conversation, and I go back through all of my emails from vet practice and read her the date and the charge amounts on each of them. You guys know how to send bills to me, I have a history of prompt payment (for bills that I actually owe), and if you’d have sent me one I’d have either paid or reached out to you by now.
She then finally sends me a bill for the current charges - thankfully less than I was expecting and less than my cap for medical care. I then called the office manager to request the interest charges waived on the bill I never received in the first place, and to arrange a time for me to drop off the ice boots they had left me for treatment that I had forgotten to return on the euthanasia appointment. Office manager was very accommodating, and as soon as the new bill without interest charges was sent, I immediately paid in full.
Now to be fair, I should’ve called them about the bill beforehand. However, I was grieving the sudden and traumatic loss of my horse and I was kind of dreading the bill as it would kind of make everything more real and concrete. As I said, I’ve only had great experiences with the actual veterinarians and the office manager, but the billing does leave a lot to be desired and I am especially unimpressed with the billing employee who didn’t recognize that the owner of a horse who was euthanized and sent a sympathy card by the practice probably doesn’t need to be lectured about interest charges and CareCredit.
All of that said, billing 2 years after the fact is really beyond the pale. I used to work in medical billing (human), and our rule was that if we didn’t discover something hadn’t been billed within a year of receiving final determination from their insurance company, it was considered uncollectable and eaten as an adminstrative expense.
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