medical bill wierdity

I live in the states cause yay me regarding healthcare.

The short version of this issue is that I had a emergency room visit last september that had been in insurance limbo for a few months. I decided to let things sort themselves out cause I had other issues to attend to.

Fast forward to the end of april this year and I finally recieve a bill from one of the doctors that saw me in the emergency room....recognized it due to following the fiasco that was these people dealing with my insurance company. At that point I had just gotten out of rehab and was broke and overwhelmed and had no way of paying it. I ended up by luck being able to get my credit card max increased so i decided to pay it cause of how long it had been since I recieved serviced. Problem was they only accepted bills by mail.

I send a cashiers check to the address provided and consider the matter settled. Fastforward to today and I check my mail and find the letter I sent returned to me unclaimed. The address on the letter was correct.

Im not quite sure what the next step is here. Seems like the practice according to the website has distanced itself from emergency room care and focusing more on local residents now.

Part of me wants to just dare them to send me to collections after previously trying to pay for this thing months ago when I was still employed using instamed and getting my money refunded cause they never accepted the instamed payment.

Anybody ever have this happen to them? Whats the most adult way forward?

Never had this happen to me directly, but I have had billing issues with medical companies. It's been so long that if they haven't sent a warning that your account will be sent to collections, I would guess they've written it off. If possible keep hold of any records that you have regarding sending the cashier's check in case you have to dispute it on your credit record. You tried to pay it and for whatever reason it got sent back. I would probably do one of two things in such a situation - 1. Assume company has written it off unless they send another letter stating otherwise. 2. See if you can find a phone number to reach their billing dept and get an itemized bill to reconcile against any payments you've already made - I always request this, because more often than not they make a mistake, rarely in the patient's favor.

Live and learn lol

Turns out from what im told by the doctors office is that they can't sign for certified mail at the PO Box because the person who pickups the mail doesn't that the authority to sign for stuff.

Who would'a thunk it!?!