ATLANTA — A metro Atlanta woman is stuck with a big bill for an ambulance, but her insurance company is ready and willing to pay.

It is the ambulance company, American Medical Response, who says it is too late for that because they have already turned the bill over to a collection agency.

Kelly Funk said she was surprised when she got the more than $2,000 demand letter from a collection agency.

“It kinda made my heart stop. Freaking out a little bit, ‘What did I miss, what did I miss,’” Funk said.

Funk says there were several ambulance rides and hospital stays last year. In each case, she submitted the bill to insurance and got reimbursed.

She says she never received the bill for the January 2022 ambulance ride AMR sent to collections.

“This particular bill, I never got in the mail. Otherwise, I would have filed it with my insurance company,” she said.

Kelly and her insurance company have both repeatedly called AMR trying to have the bill sent to insurance for coverage, but she says AMR refuses.

“They said tough. It is already out of our hands. It’s in collections and that’s up to you to deal with,” Funk said.

At her wit’s end, Funk called the volunteers at the Clark Howard Consumer Action Center.

American Medical Response tells WSB in an email:

“Due to patient privacy laws, we cannot discuss any details surrounding a specific transport. Our patient advocacy team has looked into the details provided by WSB-TV and will be following up with the patient privately.”

After we got involved here, Funk got a much different response from AMR.

The ambulance company now tells her they will pull this back from collections and submit it to her insurance company as she and the insurer had repeatedly asked.

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