A Heartland couple owes hundreds of dollars for "ambulance services" for a ride to the hospital more than 2 1/2 years ago.
A lost bill, missed opportunities and a late insurance claim costs the couple dearly.
A Heartland couple learns a financial lesson the expensive way. Now they have to pay for an ambulance ride to the hospital even though they have insurance. A lost address and lost time ends up costing hundreds in out of pocket expenses.
Yvonne Hersh has most of the documentation from her ride to the hospital but not the original bill. That never made it to her house because it had the wrong address.
That's how the collection agency became involved.
Yvonne Hersh says, "When it was returned to them they didn't do anything else other than they sent it to the collection agency. It sounds to me that it was very common common it seems like each person through this does their job and not much else."
The delay meant Yvonne's insurance company could deny the claim and eventually the Hersh's agreed to pay the city of Omaha half the original bill.
Yvonne Hersh says, "I could have done a little bit more and they could have too and it just fell through the cracks and it's kind of a bummer."
And a lesson learned about how cities, billing companies and collection agencies work.
Yvonne doesn't want her experience to scare anyone away from calling for an ambulance if they need one. She says if after a few weeks you still haven't seen a bill to go look for it, it could save you a lot of money in the end.
After being contacted by the collection agency Yvonne did call the city of Omaha finance department she thought the bill would be taken care of by her insurance company but it apparently was again lost in the shuffle.
The ambulance took her from her work to the hospital back in January of 2010.
