IS AUREON CLOSED FOR GOOD?

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I just received a call from my husband's urologist office in Atlanta...they have spoken with their ex-Aureon rep, who informed the office that an attorney has been brought on board about this issue. Apparently, the "new" owner bought the company in an auction (sounds weird), but apparently his goal is to attempt to collect from each and every person, regardless of any billing procedures set in place with each doctor's office. So an attorney is on board and more than likely this will become a class action lawsuit against this new company for illegal collecting (especially against Medicare recipients)...

My husband's urologist is sending us a copy of the billing procedure with Aureon, which states that if no money is collected from the insurance company then they cannot bill the patient.

However, PLEASE do what all these great people are saying...write a validation letter (which I did yesterday) within 30 days of the date of your letter and protect yourselves. I used the template that some kind person put on here over the weekend...If they still come after you once you've sent them the letter then send them the billing practice form that each doctor's office should have.

Thanks again everyone. This is probably my 5th or 6th post so far, and I'm SO grateful to have found this forum!
 












I pray you and your doctor from Atlanta are correct, because I know my doctor will not
help his patients with these out-of-pocket expenses for unnecessary tests. I sincerely
hope all our efforts are not in vain.
 






Anonymous said:
I pray you and your doctor from Atlanta are correct, because I know my doctor will not
help his patients with these out-of-pocket expenses for unnecessary tests. I sincerely
hope all our efforts are not in vain.
Click to expand...

Hi, it isn't our urologist's who hired an attorney. According to the ex-Aureon rep, this thing has gone viral, so an attorney has been hired by someone else. Apparently, because a lot of Medicare patients were given the same collection letter that constitutes fraud under Medicare (or something like that). More than likely, this entire mess will cause a class action lawsuit to ensue.

I was thinking of posting this to a couple of the Prostate Cancer Facebook pages for these guys who were also sent the letter and maybe haven't checked on this board to find out the scoop. The more all of us get this thing out there, the faster it will be taken care of! Your doctor is doing a grave injustice to his/her patients. He does have a responsibility, as he has some type of billing policy from Aureon stating what Aureon can and cannot do in terms of collecting money from any of us.
 






Thank you for the clarification. Unfortunately, I am not a Medicare patient and my
in-network urologist sent my slides to Aureon Labs, an out-of-network lab for these
tests to predict cancer recurrence without pre-authorization from my insurance company. When I questioned the billing department at his office last year, about this EOB, they said I would not be billed.

Until, I received the Universal Fidelity claim, I had NEVER received any form of a bill or any letters from Aureon Labs, stating their billing policies.

Again, thank you and I hope all our efforts work.
 






Interesting side note to the aureon lab & universal fidelity lp situation. I just ran a credit report on my husband's acct...universal fidelity lp ran an inquiry on jul 10, 2012, 2 days before they wrote the collection letter for the prostate px test. That inquiry will stay there for up to two years. We also received our first phone call on aug 8th. My validation request letter was received and signed for on aug 9th, 2012. Curious how many have been contacted.
 






Similar story as others posting here. Received a letter from Aureon in AUG 2010 addressed to Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance participants telling us about the test and billing process, and asking to send along any checks I received from BC. Check arrived soon after (made out to my wife, under whose insurance I was covered) with BC Explanation of Benefits. BC only covered $532 of total $3200 charged by Aureon. My wife signed the check and forwarded to Aureon as directed by their letter. I never received any other correspondence (written or calls) from Aureon again indicating that I owed them the balance. Two years later, on July 12, I received the infamous Universal Fidelity letter stating I owed the Aureon balance to them. Like ANONYMOUS, I checked my credit history (which is excellent) and saw that Universal Fidelity performed an inquiry on my credit on July 10. Sent a registered letter to UF last week disputing the bill, and received the confirmation post card yesterday that they received it. I live in southeast Pennsylvania, and will post here as I receive further correspondence from UF.
 












There's no point in writing my story...it's the same as many others.

Just wanted to say thanks to everybody for sharing. When I first got my notice I thought it was just me. Thanks to Google I found this thread and now I know I'm not alone.
 






After finding this website and finally having the opportunity to read the billing policies of the former Aureon Labs (it seems like, most of us never rec'd a copy of Aureon Labs billing policies or a bill from them, prior to the collections notice from Universal Fidelity, LP), I finally decided to research the former Aureon Labs Prostate Px+ and Post-Op investigational tests and then, I began reading the policies of, too numerous to count, insurance companies in regards to Aureon Labs Prostate PX+ and Post-OP tests. For the most part, it appears, the majority of us, were considered out-of-network claims, because Aureon Labs was NOT under contract with most of our insurance companies. However, the former Aureon Labs billed our insurance companies, like we were in-network, and then, kept appealing our claims for these new tests, (according to these billing policy letters posted on this website).

I have four questions? Has anyone's physician that ordered the Prostate PX+ or Post-Op test and had the agreement with the former Aureon labs, contacted Universal Fidelity and the new owners of Aureon labs, for sending out these collections notices, for accounts that were never supposed to be "balance billed", according to the former Aureon Labs billing policy letters?

Next, has anyone's physician contacted the former Aureon Labs management?
Since, they were the ones that had the agreement with the former
Aureon labs and if so, are they finding out, why our claims were not removed from Aureon Labs accounts, before Aureon Labs filed for bankruptcy, as stated in the former Aureon labs billing policy, "that they would NOT balance bill any patient"?

Finally, has anyone's physician asked, the former Aureon Labs management, why they sold our claims, to the new company owners, that now have placed us ALL with a collection agency, are threatening our good credit and released all our personal information to the new company, as their billing policy stated, "patients would not be balanced billed",
and does anyone know, if this is this considered a HIPPA violation, by the former Aureon Labs management?

I have only received a partial answer to the first question, "dispute the collections claim, before the 30 days of receiving the collections notice".
 






I talked to my urologist today and asked about Aureon. His practice used Aureon for more specialized biopsies.

He said that Aureon had agreed to accept what the insurance companies paid and to not bill patients. He said we should not be paying anything to the collection agency.
 






I contacted our urologist's billing department immediately upon receipt of the confidential message. I was told by the billing department that they were already aware of the problem and were in the process of trying to contact both the aureon rep and universal fidelity...both without success. I also asked whether the urologist and his legal department were aware of the problem and was told that the urologist does not get involved with insurance issues. After three weeks of calls to their office I was told that the situation was being turned over to the pathology lab that had evaluated the biopsy. So much for that.

In the interim I researched everything I could find about Aureon Labs and found reference to their Aureon Patient Care Program brochure which supposedly laid out their billing process. I could not find an actual copy on the internet. As for how Aureon informed the physicians about their no balance bill policy, it was said by almost everyone, that it was by letter. Many of the people now have copies of these given by their urologist's office. Unfortunately for me, mine doesn't know what happened to their personal copy. Fortunately someone posted the policy here.

I also went back to our insurance company, even though the biopsy was over 2 years ago, and went up the chain to a supervisor and explained the entire situation about bankrupt aureon, no balance bill, and debt collection. This piqued the supervisor's interest and she took it up her chain of mgt. and told me she was going to research it and to start working up an appeal. Yesterday I received a phone call from my insurance company and was told to do an appeal ASAP and tell them our entire story right up to Universal Fidelity, LTD. I am currently working on the appeal and really wish a had an official copy of the no balance bill letter with header, etc. of the letter. I will include what is here and also examples of other people being hit with this situation. I recommend that everyone contact their insurance company to make them aware of the situation.

One thing that has me super concerned is the auction that was held in Nov of 2011 that included all of their lab materials, equipment, pcs, laptops, etc. There was also mention of servers, etc. but I did not check when or if they were sold, however, if the drives were not wiped, anyone purchasing that equipment would have access to our records so that is a concern about HIPAA. As shut down notice was not given, the drives might not have been wiped. I did see somewhere that they had a skeleton crew so it is possible that this was done, but who knows.

As for discussing this with Aureon's former management, hopefully you wil be able to get your urologist to make those calls.
 






apparently this gentleman was responsible for reimbursement strategy

Jeff Salzman

Director of Reimbursement

Aureon Biosciences, Inc.

Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Biotechnology industry

2011 – 2011 (less than a year) Yonkers, NY

Recruited by Aureon Biosciences to develop coverage and reimbursement strategies for Prostate Px+ and Post-Op Px, two prognostic molecular diagnostic assays (considered “experimental/investigational” by the payor community) used for the stratification of patients to predict progression of prostate cancer. Aureon Biosciences ceased operations in October 2011 and filed for bankruptcy protection.
 






Anonymous said:
I talked to my urologist today and asked about Aureon. His practice used Aureon for more specialized biopsies.

He said that Aureon had agreed to accept what the insurance companies paid and to not bill patients. He said we should not be paying anything to the collection agency.
Click to expand...

What your urologist told you would be great, if the former Aureon Lab still existed.

Did your urologist, tell you, why ALL of our in-network providers had the agreement for these specialized tests with an out-of-network Aureon Lab, that kept appealing our insurance companies over and over for payment of the Prostate PX+ or Post-Op tests and that the insurance companies felt the tests were experimental and would not pay?

I never received a bill or these letters from Aureon Labs or my urologist.

We, the patients, did NOT have this agreement with the former Aureon Lab or their sales rep's.
 






Anonymous said:
I talked to my urologist today and asked about Aureon. His practice used Aureon for more specialized biopsies.

He said that Aureon had agreed to accept what the insurance companies paid and to not bill patients. He said we should not be paying anything to the collection agency.
Click to expand...

I made the quote above.

My urologist told me that when the first biopsy showed cancer, they sent it to Aureon because of their more sophisticated predictive tests. This is consistent with what we have read about Aureon.
 






Anonymous said:
I contacted our urologist's billing department immediately upon receipt of the confidential message. I was told by the billing department that they were already aware of the problem and were in the process of trying to contact both the aureon rep and universal fidelity...both without success. I also asked whether the urologist and his legal department were aware of the problem and was told that the urologist does not get involved with insurance issues. After three weeks of calls to their office I was told that the situation was being turned over to the pathology lab that had evaluated the biopsy. So much for that.

In the interim I researched everything I could find about Aureon Labs and found reference to their Aureon Patient Care Program brochure which supposedly laid out their billing process. I could not find an actual copy on the internet. As for how Aureon informed the physicians about their no balance bill policy, it was said by almost everyone, that it was by letter. Many of the people now have copies of these given by their urologist's office. Unfortunately for me, mine doesn't know what happened to their personal copy. Fortunately someone posted the policy here.

I also went back to our insurance company, even though the biopsy was over 2 years ago, and went up the chain to a supervisor and explained the entire situation about bankrupt aureon, no balance bill, and debt collection. This piqued the supervisor's interest and she took it up her chain of mgt. and told me she was going to research it and to start working up an appeal. Yesterday I received a phone call from my insurance company and was told to do an appeal ASAP and tell them our entire story right up to Universal Fidelity, LTD. I am currently working on the appeal and really wish a had an official copy of the no balance bill letter with header, etc. of the letter. I will include what is here and also examples of other people being hit with this situation. I recommend that everyone contact their insurance company to make them aware of the situation.

One thing that has me super concerned is the auction that was held in Nov of 2011 that included all of their lab materials, equipment, pcs, laptops, etc. There was also mention of servers, etc. but I did not check when or if they were sold, however, if the drives were not wiped, anyone purchasing that equipment would have access to our records so that is a concern about HIPAA. As shut down notice was not given, the drives might not have been wiped. I did see somewhere that they had a skeleton crew so it is possible that this was done, but who knows.

As for discussing this with Aureon's former management, hopefully you wil be able to get your urologist to make those calls.
Click to expand...


Someone needs to set up an anonymous email account where they can post the original copies of the billing policy. The reps have this and are trying to get copies to offices who have lost theirs.
 






Anonymous said:
What your urologist told you would be great, if the former Aureon Lab still existed.

Did your urologist, tell you, why ALL of our in-network providers had the agreement for these specialized tests with an out-of-network Aureon Lab, that kept appealing our insurance companies over and over for payment of the Prostate PX+ or Post-Op tests and that the insurance companies felt the tests were experimental and would not pay?

I never received a bill or these letters from Aureon Labs or my urologist.

We, the patients, did NOT have this agreement with the former Aureon Lab or their sales rep's.
Click to expand...

The letter was given to physicians but addresses patients- the agreement was with us because drs offices didn't play a role in the billing, they are as much the victim as we are in the sense that they were given a guarantee that isn't being honored by the new owner.
 






On Aug. 9th-2 years to the day of my husband's prostate cancer surgery-he received a "bill" from Un.Fidelity for $5,693.00. I quess our credit rating was real good! Our story is basically the same as everyone else's except the size of our Aureon balace. Our insurer-BCBS of Fla.-paid around $460. of the original bill. How did Un. Fid come up with $5,693.?
We were told by our Dr. the cost was around $3,000. in Aug.2010. Won't be too happy to have to pay taxes on that ($5693.) if we get a 1099-c. We are sending a Cease and Desist letter to Un.Fid. tommorrow; don't know what the outcome of all this will be but it seems really unfair that we are all facing this as my husband and I feel the test was a huge waste of everyone's money as the test did nothing to cure the cancer. The results change nothing as he still has to go for psa tests. We plan to follow up with BCBS and his surgeon and will pass along any info we receive.
 






In the letter I sent to Universal Fidelity, I used the information from the first paragraph on the back side of the "Confidential Message". My letter was sent certified mail late last week. The receipt hasn't come back yet.

My letter read:

August 9, 2012

Universal Fidelity, LP
Box 219785
Houston, TX 77218-9785

EDP Number [number was put in]
Client: Aureon Labs
Account No: [none listed]
Account Balance: $3,200.00

I dispute the validity of this debt or any portion thereof.

Please provide me with verification of this debt. Please provide an itemized listing of this debt. Please provide the name and address of the original and current creditor. Please provide additional information on how to resolve this issue.



[Signature Block]

I know some of you are asking Universal Fidelity to stop contacting you. Personally I think that is a bad idea since you probably want to know what is going on. I would only ask them to stop calling on the phone (which I dont' think they are doing). I want written documentation of everything going on here.
 






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