Collections agencies need to provide you with an itemized list of what you owe and to who.
If a hospital gives out this information, especially if they didn’t even try to collect it themselves, they have violated HIPPA.
Will a collections agency give you a document proving they vioated HIPPA? No. Do you owe debts on something w/o receipts? No.
Where are you going where you aren’t required to sign a financial disclosure allowing for the relevant information to be sent to whatever service is used to collect payment? I haven’t been to a single doctor’s office, urgent care, or hospital in several years that didn’t require me signing a form consenting to that.
Collections also doesn’t need to provide an itemized list of every detail you owe for, not in the way you’re implying at least. They’re not about to say “you owe the hospital $20 for an aspirin.” They can, however, say “you owe [this hospital] [this dollar amount] for services on [this date].” The itemization they’re required to give is the current debt, any fees and interest, and any payments or credits made on it. That’s straight from CFPB.
Yeah people do not trust this YSK. Your medical debt more than likely can and will be sent to collections. You may have certain FDCA or general consumer protection rights associated with that collection, including potential HIPAA violations, but that isn’t going to stop your debt being sent to collections.
This doesn’t get into the fact that many hospitals do not have to sell their medical debt to hire a collections agent to recover the debt for them. “Sent to collections” does not necessarily mean the debt is sold and you can still be pursued by debt collectors acting on behalf of the original creditor.
Do not trust random, and very wrong, Internet posters.
I’ve never signed away my HIPPA rights to a hospital lol