WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) – One woman is speaking out after she says, billing issues with Novant Health led collections agencies to come after her.
Debbie Wren says she set up a payment plan to pay her hospital bill, but a recent change led to collection agencies demanding and calling for payments.
Wren has spent a lot of time in the hospital.. battling Crohn’s Disease. She started a payment plan in 2023 and says things were going along okay, until Novant Health changed systems earlier this year, which Wren says created major problems.
Wren says Novant changed systems in May of this year and never mentioned what would happen to her payment plan once they made the switch.
“My payment plan disappeared and nothing was ever said about it,” said Wren.
Wren wants to know how Novant addressed payment plans, before May 4 when Novant switched billing systems.
Since that change, Wren says collection agencies have started calling and demanding payments. She says the agencies, have noted other patients similar to her, have called with similar complaints.
“When I called about it I was told everything was fine. You’re fine. You don’t owe us anything. You are on a payment plan. You are in good standing. Next thing I know, I’m getting calls from a collection agency or two,” said Wren.
Wren, frustrated and now concerned this could be happening to other patients, called Novant again.
“So I wrote down, I asked her you know what are the account numbers? What are the amounts? What is the date of services? So I wrote all this down and I called Novant to ask them about it and I was given the runaround, no matter who I talked to,” said Wren.
We reached out to Novant Health.
Representatives said they could not address Wren’s case specifically because of patient confidentiality.
They did say in part, “We would encourage any individual with questions or concerns regarding their financial responsibility to contact our teams for assistance, either through the individual facility or by calling our support team directly.”
But Wren said that’s exactly what she did and did not get answers.
She’s willing to meet with them face-to-face to get an explanation.
“How much do I owe you guys, really? And why didn’t you notify me that you weren’t going to be using my payment plan anymore? Why didn’t you tell me this? There needs to be a solution besides sending everybody to collection agencies,” said Wren.
A spokesperson for Novant Health added that the hospital has not seen too many issues with billing and payments related to the transition.
Wren told WECT Novant Health had called after we had reached out to Novant about her case.
She said regardless of what they would have said on the phone, she wanted people to be made aware of this, in case they were dealing with similar issues.
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