Quest Diagnostics charged me $3,437 for a blood test. But I should be covered!

Why is Quest Diagnostics sending Maria Jacobson a $3,437 bill for her blood test? Her insurance company should cover it -- or should it?

In 2022, I went to a Quest Diagnostics location in Issaquah, Wash., for a blood screening test. At the time, I gave an employee my health insurance information.

Quest Diagnostics sent me a bill for $3,437. It looks like they didn't use my health insurance information, so I was billed for the full amount.

I have contacted Quest Diagnostics repeatedly to get this fixed. But the company continues to bill me for the full amount. Can you help me get this fixed?

Maria Jacobson, North Bend, Wash.

If your health insurance covered your blood test, then you should have received no bill from Quest Diagnostics.

But were you covered?

Interestingly, the problem -- and the solution -- was right in front of Quest. It looks like it had used your previous health insurance code, even though you gave a Quest representative the correct one. Then, after you received the erroneous bill, you asked Quest to correct the problem, and it wouldn't.

The best explanation: You were not dealing with a person but AI. The technology wasn't smart enough to replace your old insurance code with a new one. It wasn't smart enough to connect your many requests to update the code with your bill. (The other possibility, of course, is that a real person saw your request but failed to act. I certainly hope that isn't the case.)

To fix a problem with Quest, you have a few options. First, contact your physician. The medical office may be able to contact Quest faster on your behalf and fix the coding issue as your advocate. Some high-quality medical offices will go the extra mile to ensure everything is coded correctly.

Second, you can reach out to Quest Diagnostics to ask it to fix the problem. Quest has always preferred that you call it for help, but it also uses email. That didn't work for you either, so you could have escalated this to one of the Quest executives whose names, numbers and emails I publish on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org.

Quest has a history of botched billing and tone-deaf responses. It has overbilled customers and even hired a collections agency to go after them for bills they didn't owe.

Behind the scenes, here's what's going on: The system is designed to wear you down so that you give up and pay. If you do pay, Quest gets to keep the sticker price for your blood tests instead of the dramatically lower rates insurance companies negotiate with it. And your insurance company pays nothing. So really, both are incentivized to make you pay out of pocket.

My advice: Don't!

Stick with it. Be persistent. Use my proven methods for resolving a consumer dispute. But whatever you do, don't give up.

To your credit, you didn't give up. Instead, you contacted my advocacy organization. I reached out to Quest Diagnostics on your behalf. Within a few days, it had corrected your invoice and zeroed it out.

Christopher Elliott is the founder of Elliott Advocacy (https://elliottadvocacy.org), a nonprofit organization that helps consumers solve their problems. Email him at [email protected] or get help by contacting him at https://elliottadvocacy.org/help/

© 2024 Christopher Elliott