Recently the Wall Street Journal had an article about medical billing errors. These can be very costly because they can impact your credit rating. But there is one billing practice they missed. Some health care providers (we have found this with two and it is probably more common) begin the billing date as of the date of service but don’t send a bill until insurance has paid their part. Then when they do send a bill for the coinsurance it is “late” and they threaten to turn it over to a collection agency. In other words, the very FIRST bill you may get already has your account as delinquent.