CC on account for medical?

sibesx2

Mouseketeer
Joined
Apr 28, 2013
I had some bloodwork done last week and the lab said they now require a credit card be placed on the account. First she said they would only charge what the insurance didn't pay and then she said they would only charge a max of $150. She made it sound like this is fairly common now but this is the first for me.

I refused and she said they would go ahead and do the tests this time but would probably not do it next time. I'm just not comfortable leaving my CC info for them to charge whatever they feel like. And especially since I do not have a co-pay or deductible for lab work. There is no need for them to have that info.

Has anyone had this happen?
 
yes. i had one refuse to do anything unless i gave them a credit card. i knew i should be paying nothing at that time so I gave them a prepaid card that I knew had no money on it.

I think I am going to buy a prepaid card and carry it with me for situations like this.
 


They're most likely doing it because they want to insure they get payment. I would guess they serve a decent size population that doesn't pay when they get a bill for various reasons.

I don't think with all the compliance issues they would come up against they can charge you more and once entered into their system they shouldn't have access to you're actual card info.

I would ask them if you put it on file if they can contact you prior to any charges so you're aware of them. You might also see if there's another lab you can use or if your Dr office can do the blood draw and send it in. That might be the work around too.
 
This is common and is a means for the company to overall save money if they do not have to send repeated bills and have multiple persons to check on payments. A prepaid care or a Flexible Spending Account card on file makes this seamless and easy assuming all goes according to plan. Some companies are going to allowing online payments. The phlebotomist probably has a prepared script. I have told them multiple times that I would not put a card on file, but I would sign up for the online portal, so I would get an email of an amount due and be able to pay it online. That works well also.
 
I had to go to urgent care recently and had to give them my credit card to charge once they figured out with my insurance what I owed. It seemed convenient to me.
 


This is happening more often, especially for individuals with high-deductible insurance - they want to make sure they get payment. I understand their reasoning, and it doesn't bother me at all.
 
I don't see a big deal. If something happens, you dispute the charge with your credit card company. They probably get a lot of people who don't pay their bill, and this is a way for them to get their payment (which is only fair).
 
I don't see a big deal. If something happens, you dispute the charge with your credit card company. They probably get a lot of people who don't pay their bill, and this is a way for them to get their payment (which is only fair).

To me, having to spend hours on the phone fixing this kind of mistake is a big deal. I had a vet charge me for my visit and the next person's visit. It took over a month to resolve.
 
Bothers me a lot. I would have refused as well, especially with them unable to tell me how much they would charge. Make sure there's a couple bucks on your prepaid card in case they test ping it for $1 to make sure it'e legit. Once you let go of the money good luck getting anything back, especially when insurers are involved. Now that I'm thinking it through- lots of people don't have credit cards. That's probably the route I would go. I hate pre-paid cards personally, something always seems to go wrong for me whenever I dabble in those. Glad you posted your experience OP, now I have a game plan.
 
I don't see a big deal. If something happens, you dispute the charge with your credit card company. They probably get a lot of people who don't pay their bill, and this is a way for them to get their payment (which is only fair).
It's not fair if they won't tell OP what will be charged. They could theoretically take OP to the cleaner's and OP probably signed away somewhere in the dozen docs they had to sign before blood was drawn that the lab isn't responsible for that sort of mistake. It could become a serious nightmare.
 
I had to go to urgent care recently and had to give them my credit card to charge once they figured out with my insurance what I owed. It seemed convenient to me.
I wouldn't have a problem either if they did it that way- CC points, yay! But if they couldn't tell me how much they would charge they can just wait for my CC until they can.
 
Bothers me a lot. I would have refused as well, especially with them unable to tell me how much they would charge. Make sure there's a couple bucks on your prepaid card in case they test ping it for $1 to make sure it'e legit. Once you let go of the money good luck getting anything back, especially when insurers are involved. Now that I'm thinking it through- lots of people don't have credit cards. That's probably the route I would go. I hate pre-paid cards personally, something always seems to go wrong for me whenever I dabble in those. Glad you posted your experience OP, now I have a game plan.

The lab is in my doctors office but run by an outside company. She was really vague on what could be charged to the card. Sure I could dispute charges to the card but as a PP said who wants that hassle. I understand that some people don't pay their bills or maybe they are trying to keep billing costs down. I have no problem paying my co-pay at the time of service but she said they don't have access to insurance info. The solution would be for them to get the insurance info (like the doctors office does) and require payment of any co-pay or deductible at the time of service. Lab work is covered in full under my insurance so I see no reason I should I have to leave a card on file.

She actually asked for a credit or debit card number to put on file. There is absolutely no way I would put a debit card on file! The prepaid card is a good idea. I'll have to look into it.
 
The lab is in my doctors office but run by an outside company. She was really vague on what could be charged to the card. Sure I could dispute charges to the card but as a PP said who wants that hassle. I understand that some people don't pay their bills or maybe they are trying to keep billing costs down. I have no problem paying my co-pay at the time of service but she said they don't have access to insurance info. The solution would be for them to get the insurance info (like the doctors office does) and require payment of any co-pay or deductible at the time of service. Lab work is covered in full under my insurance so I see no reason I should I have to leave a card on file.

She actually asked for a credit or debit card number to put on file. There is absolutely no way I would put a debit card on file! The prepaid card is a good idea. I'll have to look into it.
Oh yikes! Debit card, darn most people do have those! Where is my head today?! Yeah- no way. Pre-paid card it is...
 
Yes, this is very common now, I’ve had to give several offices my card. Pretty soon you won’t have a choice.
 
I expect my provider's office to be able to access my medical insurance. Otherwise, how do I even know up front if their services are covered by my plan? I have had offices tell me that the insurance will cover X and you'll be responsible for Y which you can pay now. I will pay my bill, but I want proof first that it's been correctly submitted to the insurance company to pay first. I'm not giving someone carte blanche with my credit card. It's bad enough you almost never know the final cost of what something medical will cost up front. It's even worse when you can't double check that it's been processed correctly before the money comes out of your account.
 
I have a checking and savings account online with Capital One 360. The checking account comes with a debit card. I never have money in that checking account. I use that card when I'm buying something online. Then I log into capital one, move the money out of savings (not a lot in there either this is strictly for online stuff) into checking and use the debit card on whatever site. If I had a place that needed a credit card on file that's the credit card I'd give. Capital One will only float you $25 so that would be all they could charge to the card anyway.
 
We do a similiar thing at our bank.Have an online account that only uses the cards online.We move cash back and forth-depending on online purchases,and scheduled bills.Works like a dream-only can be used within the amount we have in the account at the time.
 
Labs here don't do that, at least yet. They bill me for any balance, and then I pay with my HSA debit card. So far the balance in my HSA has always been greater than any bills.
 

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