A system error caused more than 4,000 Adirondack Health patients to receive final billing statements before receiving their initial statements, the Press-Republican reported Jan. 5.
The Saranac Lake, N.Y.-based hospital said it contracts with Client Financial Services to manage billing statements for its self-pay patients, and last week the vendor found more than 4,000 initial billing notices failed to automatically send. As a result, a related error mailed final billing notices to those patients instead. The final notice referenced sending the accounts to debt collection without payment.
"Adirondack Health regrets this error and takes full responsibility for the undue alarm it has caused a number of our patients," Robert Laba, Adirondack Health's CFO, told the Press-Republican. "Our patient financial services team is working closely with the vendor, and affected patients, to fix this issue and ensure it does not happen again."
Affected patients have received corrected billing statements.
Adirondack Health said its self-pay patients have at least 120 days to make a payment before accounts are turned over to collections.
"None of these accounts have been turned over to collection agencies, nor would they be for at least four months," Mr. Laba told the Press-Republican.