The danger of having an unorganized mail drawer...

This morning while I was waiting to get April up for school I decided to go through the mail drawer and see which upcoming bills I need to pay out of my check this week. I came across a bill from an Emergency Room visit – not a hospital bill but a separate bill to pay for the emergency room doctor. This bill was dated March 8, 2009 and had a little note at the bottom (barely even able to be read by the naked eye) that “Insurance has paid their portion and I must contact them at once to make payment arrangements. If arrangements have not been made by the next billing cycle the account will be turned over to collections.”

Holy smokes did that start to set in a panic attack. I’m thinking they probably have already turned this over and I am so screwed! All the hard work I’ve done to repair and raise my credit score has just gone down the toilet. I couldn’t eat breakfast because I was so nerved up. You can bet your rear that I was on the phone at exactly 8:00 a.m. to them to make a payment over the phone and praying the whole time that they hadn’t already turned it over to collections.

Someone was definitely on my side in this because when I called them the customer service person told me that it had not been turned over to collections yet. I asked about paying over the phone and they said they do not accept payments over the phone; they have to be mailed in. So I told them to please note the account that I was mailing payment today. I don’t think I ever wrote a check, stuffed it in an envelope, sealed the envelope or stamped it so fast in my life. (Like somehow shaving those extra 30 seconds off was going to make a difference!)

Holy smokes that could have been bad, very bad.

Lesson: Organize mail drawer immediately!