Andrew Warshall has been receiving threatening letters for over a month from a North Carolina-based laboratory conglomerate looking to collect $314 for a “free” Covid-19 test at a city-sponsored site in Day Street Park.
The city and the Fairfield County doctor in charge of the Dwight testing operation continue to insist that Warshall won’t have to pay a dime, and that the lab bill will ultimately be dropped. Meanwhile, the debt collection letters keep coming.
Warshall is a 39-year-old Edgewood resident and adjunct professor in mathematics at Southern Connecticut State University.
His experience wrestling with the surprise medical bill after getting tested for Covid-19 in late May illuminates how communication breakdowns and differences of medical opinion among healthcare providers, insurance companies, state regulators, lab companies, and local public health officials can manifest themselves in a hefty charge delivered out of the blue to a patient’s mailbox. All because that patient heeded public health advice and decided to get tested during a pandemic.
It also raises questions about whether or not the current patchwork of city, state and federal regulations do indeed ensure that no one in Connecticut should have to pay out of pocket for a Covid test.
Another question: Is Murphy Medical in particular ordering and billing for more than just Covid tests? Past patients have raised that question. Or are insurance companies being far too stingy, controlling, and narrow in their understanding of what qualifies as a medically-valid component of detecting the novel coronavirus?
Since Aug. 15, Warshall has received three letters from LCA Collections, an “in-house division” of the North Carolina-headquartered laboratory testing company, LabCorp.
Each of those letters states that Warshall owes an “immediate payment” of $314 resulting from his May 26 visit to the Day Street Park testing site run by Murphy Medical Associates. During that visit, he received a nasopharyngeal swab test and an antibody test for Covid-19. (Both results came back negative.)
“It is not our wish to have this matter handled as a collection issue,” reads LCA Collections’ most recent letter, dated Sept. 15. “However, if this bill is not satisfied immediately, it will be listed as a severely delinquent account and further collection activities will proceed.”
Warshall told the Independent that the surprise medical bill’s dollar amount, while unwelcome, is not in an of itself so distressing to him. He can pay $314 if he needs to.
What has so upset him is that he received the bill at all, considering how the city and Murphy Medical Associates have promoted the Day Street Park testing site since its inception in late April as completely cost-free for patients. Regardless of whether or not they are sick. Regardless of whether or not they have insurance. To read more click here