Background: I was in high school (public) and our school just got back from quarantine, and had everybody to take a mandatory covid test every week. Our teachers rounded us up and these people swabbed and tested us. We didn’t sign anything, we didn’t ask for this, we were just told to line up and do it.
Now that was last school year, just this week I received a bill from MEDLAB2020 sent to my home with my full name and my insurance information telling me to pay $3700 for that year of weekly COVID tests. Now, I thought this was free, being in a public school and not having signed or agreeing to anything. So I guess I’ll just call the school up the following Monday or something because I’m not paying this.
I did find a post with pretty much the same situation https://www.reddit.com/r/COVID19positive/comments/10alt16/received_a_billing_email_from_medlab2020/
You were a minor and they performed a medical procedure on you without written consent from your parents? That’s a lawsuit.
The test itself would fall in the school’s authority, but no way a minor can authorize a debt like that.
Not necessarily. I’m pretty sure there are several medical procedures that parental consent isn’t required for in some places (controversially, gender affirming care). I don’t know about California, but COVID testing at school sounds like it would easily fall into that category.
Wasn’t COVID testing supposed to be covered by the federal government at that time?
Yeah, OP, this sounds like a scam. I’d get in touch with the school and/or your health insurance provider to confirm this is legit before you pay them a dime.
Don’t pay anything towards this until you absolutely have to. If you pay it can be used to show you accept the debt, making it harder to get rid of.
If you do have to pay(sounds like a scam) only pay like 1 dollar a month eventually they will just get rid of the debt since credit card processing and administrative fees will make it not worth their time. The whole thing doesn’t sound very legal. Contact your insurance company.
And contest it with the credit agencies.
