St Rose Dominican Hospitals Two co-payments Las Vegas Nevada

On Aug. 5th of 2008 I admitted myself to the aforementioned hospital with chronic chest pains.All of my vitals were checked,My blood was drawn and I had one x-ray taken. I was then taken to a private bed and asked to wait.Moments later, a member of the accounts department approached me and provided me with a bill for my co-payment. After paying the bill I was left alone for nearly an hour.I was then informed that the facility did not have any beds available for further treatment and my choices were to wait indefinitely or to be relocated to a new sister campus that had recently opened and had available beds. I was then transported to the new San Martn Campus on 8280 West Warm Springs Road via ambulance.I stayed over night and was released the following evening.Several weeks late I received a receipt for my co-payment and an outstanding bill for another co-payment from the San Martin campus. At no point was I ever informed that I would receive two charges due to the relocation. In fact, the hospital verbally thanked me for helping THEM out.Naturally, I immediately called the billing department to query the charge. It is now almost a year since I received the bill and after ten or more phone calls and two letters of dispute I have made absolutely zero progress.Every phone call produced the same result, an employee telling me that it was a clerical error and that I would be contacted with more information but then I would just receive another bill. I have just made the full payment with a local collection agency who informed me that the dispute had gone onto my credit score and "That's just the way it is". In my humble opinion this is just another example of legal fraud in this country. The system employed seems to be typically infallible. If the employee's are not provided with the correct information then the consumer cannot make any progress. I am so very disgusted with this sad state of affairs.If anyone can offer any on advice on how to successfully dispute a hospital charge I would be eternally grateful.

Matt
Las vegas, Nevada
U.S.A.