Hi. On May 23, 2003 I was alone in my car, going straight, driving home form work and was hit by a another driver attempting to make a left turn at an intersection in Brooklyn, NY. At the time I had full coverage on my 97 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited. The jeep was totaled, and I subsequently had to have 8 hours of surgery relating to the accident. An ambulance responded to the area and took me to the emergency room of a hospital for treatment.
Now today 1-10-08 I received a call from a debt collection service notifying me that they are attempting to collect a debt for ambulance related services totaling $450.00 from May 2003. According to the debt collection company, they mailed a notice of claim to me at my home address on January 3, 2008. My address and telephone numbers have remained the same for over 12 years.
My question is, shouldn't New York's no fault insurance law have taken care of that bill? Was it the lawyers responsibility to make sure of that? A claim was filed within 30 days of the accident. Is there a statute of limitations for such a claim to be filed against me after 5 years? I never received any notification/letters/bills for ambulance service from anyone since the accident. The legal issues relating to the case were settled over two years ago now.
Am I still responsible for paying that bill? Can the debt collection company legally come after me, get a judgment against me in court, and affect my credit report? I have been a NY city resident 22 years now.
Help!

JudyKayTee

[quote=sweetp924]Hi. On May 23, 2003 I was alone in my car, going straight, driving home form work and was hit by a another driver attempting to make a left turn at an intersection in Brooklyn, NY. At the time I had full coverage on my 97 Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited. The jeep was totaled, and I subsequently had to have 8 hours of surgery relating to the accident. An ambulance responded to the area and took me to the emergency room of a hospital for treatment.
Now today 1-10-08 I received a call from a debt collection service notifying me that they are attempting to collect a debt for ambulance related services totaling $450.00 from May 2003. According to the debt collection company, they mailed a notice of claim to me at my home address on January 3, 2008. My address and telephone numbers have remained the same for over 12 years.
My question is, shouldn't New York's no fault insurance law have taken care of that bill? Was it the lawyers responsibility to make sure of that? A claim was filed within 30 days of the accident. Is there a statute of limitations for such a claim to be filed against me after 5 years? I never received any notification/letters/bills for ambulance service from anyone since the accident. The legal issues relating to the case were settled over two years ago now.
Am I still responsible for paying that bill? Can the debt collection company legally come after me, get a judgment against me in court, and affect my credit report? I have been a NY city resident 22 years now.


If it wasn't submitted to your no fault carrier before, I would submit it now; your settlement (and I assume because you have an Attorney you received a settlement) probably states somewhere that you will pay any and all unpaid medical bills out of the settlement. No Fault will only pay what is submitted to them; your Attorney will only follow up on what is submitted to him/her - neither one had any way of knowing this bill existed if you, the patient, didn't know it existed. In NYS the claim itself has to be filed within 30 days - the bills can trickle in (literally) forever.

Again - I would submit it to the No Fault carrier and see what they have to say - do you have a printout of the medical bills they paid? Was it already paid?