I have been having issues with my Mom’s bill from her Assisted Living Facility. Is this common?

My new strategy: I email the person in billing and ask her how much is owed for a specific month. At first she wanted to tell me on the phone, but I insisted she answer via email so I would have the figure in writing. If she can't commit to a figure in writing, she is working in the wrong department.

I had this exact issue with Brookdale to the point where I moved my folks to a non corporate owned ALF and never saw another screwed up bill again for the next 6 years. True story.

About 6 months before mom passed, the private ALF had a corporate management company take over. I immediately received a double bill for the first time EVER, and this was after an email letting me know this new management company was going to "streamline" billing and get things done right. What a sad joke it is when "corporations" take over and "fix" things that were never broken in the first place.

My moms , the auto pay took forever to get into place ,months of not getting it set up…. then she was auto-withdrawn $5000 instead of $6400, next month $5500 instead of $6400. I told them 3 times about it. They only corrected one of them…

Igloo, my problem is I have worked in billing, accts rec and collections so know how it all works. I received a bill for Mom. I was asked to pay only $30 of the bill, the rest $60 was insurance pending. A few months later I get a collection letter for the $60. I called the company who had billed me. They start naming these weird amounts. I finally realized what they had done. First the statement read wrong then they ran my $30 instead of putting the $30 against the invoice it corresponded to. (This is lazyness and caused problems) If I hadn't posted in my life, I never would have figured out what they did.

And yes, you have to lay it all out for them. You have to assume they are dum. You don't really have to ask for a return signature. This is expensive. Certified mail gives u a tracking#. You can call up the info and it shows the envelope has been dlvd.

If you do not have a copy of every page of her admissions agreement get it & asap. Hopefully you already have it.

If this keeps up into month 5, I’d suggest that you send a certified letter with the return receipt card to the administrator of the AL. The letter done in timeline detail as to errors and what was supposed to happen & if not addressed. Not phone calls or speaking to someone in person. In writing & certified/RRC. If after this it’s not fixed, I’d look for another place. She’s in AL and I assume private pay, there are lots & lots of other AL’s. If mom moves out breaking her contract / admissions agreement, you use that letter and return receipt card to show they voided the agreement by their actions.

For my moms 1st NH, every month for months there were billing issues. It should have been very very straightforward as she was LTC Medicaid Pending so in theory the NH got all her established for that year monthly income less the $60 personal needs allowance she was able to keep under Medicaid rules.
But for first 6 months bills were $200/300 wrong in their favor and the check I wrote for the copay credited to another account or waited weeks to finally deposit. They added late fees. All sorts of outside RX charges for meds she was not on. Billed for cable which she declined in admissions paperwork. Her medical care there was ok but after SW left & the DON told me she was looking 2 leave, the writing on the wall that it was medically going downhill. I moved my mom to another NH who had a LTC Medicaid bed open. It was a bit of a ballet to accomplish but do-able. Eons better!

I flat do not have the patience to deal with repeating errors or willful ignorance. Personally on retrospect I think some of this was very much done deliberately as families are overwhelmed in dealing with thier parents constant needs, dealing with a forest of paperwork from Medicare/their MDs/pharmacy programs and perhaps also having to get rid of parents household stuff, consolidating/ zeroing out bank accounts, yada yada. So family may just pay a bill. And if in a NH there’s a good probability that they might die and family won’t realize their elder overpaid till after death.

Kudos to you for being such a watchful advocate for her!

My Mom was billed a daily charge like rehabs. Which means, if there were 30 days in the month she was billed the daily amount. If 31, her bill would be higher by a day. 28/29 days and it was lower. Her room and board and care were the same daily. Her prescription billing came from the pharmacy and I paid that separately.

What I would do is make the adjustment and pay accordingly. Take a copy if their invoice circling the mistakes and reason why they are wrong. Show your calculations on the invoice or another piece of paper. If you have to, go back the whole 3 months. I may take your info to the Administrator telling them this is an ongoing problem. Give him a copy and a copy to him for the billing dept or you send it to them.

My brother's ALF was meticulous and perfect. They withdrew (if I wished, and I DID) automatically from his account the EXACT same amount for room and board (meals) and for level of care (level I) each month. It NEVER varied by a single cent. And I was told if it WOULD vary I would be told for what and why. But it never DID vary. I was informed ahead of time when the rates would go up and indeed we were informed on admission we could expect 3-5% raise yearly unless something went awray. He is gone now, but things ARE going up of course with Covid costs and with inflation.
Again, this is pretty serious. You need to find out who at the facility is in charge of billing, and ask for a meeting with that person now.