After $2,774 Covid Test, Dunner Persists

Debt collection threats keep coming to another New Havener who received a ​“free” Covid-19 test at a city-sponsored clinic run by Dr. Steven Murphy.

That’s the latest development in the ongoing saga of the controversial Greenwich-based doctor and his medical practice, Murphy Medical Associates.

Patients from across Connecticut and New York have spoken up over the past year about how they visited government-backed testing sites run by Murphy to receive only a Covid-19 test — and later found out that Murphy had billed their insurance companies $2,000 a pop (or more) for a suite of unrequested and potentially unrelated medical treatment. (This was first reported by the Independent, then the Stamford Advocate and the New York Times.)

In at least one case reported by the Independent, one such patient — Edgewood resident Andrew Warshall — spent months fighting back against a debt collector looking to dock him for over $300 in out-of-pocket bills related to a supposedly ​“free” test he received at a Day Street walk-up site sponsored by the city and run by Murphy. That standoff ended with Warshall’s insurance provider agreeing to pay $30 — and with LabCorp dropping the rest of the bill.

The most recent New Haven resident to come forward about the fiscal fallout of her supposedly ​“free” Covid-19 test is Carmen Baskauf, a 26-year-old WNPR producer and resident of Wooster Square.

According to an interview with Baskauf and a review of relevant medical records, on June 5, 2020, Baskauf received a nasal swab Covid-19 test at a Quinnipiac Meadows pop-up clinic sponsored by the city’s Health Department and run by Murphy.

She didn’t get the results for her test — which came back ​“negative” — until two weeks later.

Murphy and the North Carolina-headquartered laboratory testing company LabCorp ultimately billed Baskauf’s insurance company a total of $2,774 in charges related to that single nasopharyngeal test.

That June test and July billing to her insurance company, however, marked just the beginning of Baskauf’s year-long travails with the accused pandemic ​“profiteer.”

For the past six months, Baskauf has been receiving threatening letters from LCA Collections, the debt collection wing of LabCorp, looking to collect $307.13 she allegedly owes stemming from that initial test.

“FINAL NOTICE,” the most recent letter, from May 31, reads in all caps. ​“PROTECT YOUR CREDIT.”

“This communication will serve as a FINAL DEMAND for payment,” the letter continues. ​“As previously stated, we provided lab work at your physician’s request. The balance due on this account remains unpaid. Unless LabCorp receives full payment within 20 days, your account will be referred to an outside collections agency. We will authorize the agency to report any delinquent balance to the credit bureaus.”

The letter ends with some more all-caps instructions.

“PROTECT YOUR CREDIT HISTORY,” it reads, ​“AND ACT IMMEDIATELY.”

“It makes me so frustrated,” Baskauf said about her months-long fight against debt collectors for charges related to a city-sponsored Covid-19 test she thought was free. ​“I have so many other things I would like to focus my time and energy on.

“I think it’s particularly frustrating when this is a piece of my interaction with the healthcare system that was supposed to be easy and painless and free,” she continued, ​“because the country had come together and said: ​‘It’s really important for people to get tested for Covid and to stop this public health crisis.’ It makes me very frustrated, and only increases my cynicism about healthcare as a whole.”

Murphy Medical Associates attorney Michael Battema declined to comment for the article. The Murphy Medical lawyers representing the practice in their ongoing federal suit against Cigna did not respond to a request for comment by the publication time of this article. In previous interviews with the Independent and in previous court filings in the federal case, Murphy’s lawyers have defended him as a pandemic-era folk hero daring to challenge the ​“illegal and irresponsible” under-payments of an insurance giant.

Murphy has described himself as a ​“pioneer” in the effort to set up mass, accessible Covid-testing at the onset of the pandemic. He claimed he used cutting-edge medical technology to treat patients who needed to be tested not just for Covid-19, but also for ​“other respiratory viruses and infections that could cause the same or similar symptoms as Covid-19.”

Murphy told the Independent by email that Cigna has misrepresented his companies in court filings in the ongoing federal case. And, he said, Cigna is currently ​“being sued for RICO violations as well as by other medical and laboratory providers.”

$2,774 For One Nasal Swab Test

Baskauf’s Covid-testing ordeal started over a year ago, in late May 2020.

At the time Baskauf covered a few outdoor anti-police brutality marches and protests in New Haven for WNPR in the wake of the Minneapolis police murder of George Floyd.

These assignments marked her first interactions with large groups of people since the start of the pandemic two months prior. Recognizing the importance of testing in the society-wide effort to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus, Baskauf decided to get tested.

An initial visit to a CVS-run drive-through site on Long Wharf was thwarted. She didn’t have a car, so she showed up on her bike instead. She was told by those running the site that she would get swabbed only if she arrived in a motor vehicle.

She Tweeted at the city and the mayor to ask about where in New Haven she could get tested for Covid without having to show up in a car.

City Health Director Maritza Bond responded on Twitter on May 28 by encouraging Baskauf to make an appointment at one of the city-sponsored sites run by Murphy.

Which is exactly what Baskauf did.

She signed up in advance, scheduled an appointment to be swabbed at a Newhallville pop-up. Thanks to a last-minute change of plans by the city and Murphy, she showed up instead on June 5 at a city-sponsored, Murphy-run clinic in Quinnipiac Meadows.

“Somebody stuck a swab up my nose,” and that was about it, Baskauf recalled. ​“As far as I knew, I was just getting the Covid nose swab. It probably took three minutes. Someone stuck the swab up both nostrils, then I left.”

That same day, she received an automated email notice from Murphy Medical’s Sarah McMahon noting that someone from the clinic would call her within the next five to seven days to follow up on the results of her Covid test.

Then silence for two weeks.

On June 19, Baskauf received an email from Murphy Medical stating that her lab results were in, and that she had tested negative.

“At that point, I was pretty sure I already didn’t have Covid,” given the two-week delay between her test and the delivery of her results, Baskauf said. ​“But I guess it was nice to know.”

Anesthesia?

On July 7, she received an explanation of benefits (EOB) in the mail from her insurance provider, Anthem.

The EOB raised a few alarms.

For one, it stated that Murphy and LabCorp billed Anthem a total of $2,774 for that single Covid-19 nasal swab test from early June.

Those charges included $1,500 for ​“lab microbiology,” $243 for a doctor’s office visit, and $130 for ​“preventive service” submited by Murphy Medical, and $810 for ​“anesthesia” and $100 for ​“Medical_Care” submitted by LabCorp.

The EOB also stated that Anthem had paid a total of $154.64 of these charges. The insurance company had ​“discounted” $1,740.81. Now Baskauf was on the hook to pay out of pocket the remaining $878.55. (Anthem would ultimately increase its total amount paid to Murphy as reimbursement for the cost of the Covid test to $626.06.)

Baskauf ultimately spoke with someone at Murphy Medical, who assured her that she would not have to pay a dime of these costs. This was simply the explanation of charges billed to the insurance company. No patients, including Baskauf, would ever have to pay anything out of pocket for a ​“free” Covid test provided by Murphy.

She also spoke at that time with a fraud investigator from Anthem, sought advice from the state’s Office of the Healthcare Advocate, and took to Twitter again to call out the city on the dubious charges.

“I guess this is a scary explanation of benefits,” Baskauf remembered thinking at the time, ​“but ultimately I haven’t gotten billed for it, and the Murphy Medical people say I won’t be billed for it. So I guess it’s fine.”

Dogged By Debt Collector For $307

Roughly five months later, in December 2020, Baskauf started getting letters from LabCorp indicating that the hefty price-tag associated with her June 5 Covid test wasn’t behind her yet.

A Dec. 19 letter she received from LabCorp stated that the North Carolina-based testing conglomerate has charged her insurer $810 for a ​“respiratory profile” polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test and $100 for a SARS-CoV‑2 nucleic acid amplification (NAA) test. Her insurance had paid the full $100 for the Covid test, and had not paid any of the $810 for the ​“respiratory profile.”

After the insurance company’s ​“adjustment” of charges, LabCorp wrote, Baskauf still owed them $307.13 out of pocket.

That prompted another round of outreach to her insurance company and to the Office of the Healthcare Advocate, both of whom advised her not to pay the bill as Anthem continued to contest the charges and as the state Attorney General continues to investigate Murphy’s practice for potential fraud.

Meanwhile, LabCorp kept sending Baskauf letters — this time in the form of LCA Collections debt collection notices that threatened her credit score if she didn’t cough up the $307.13.

The most recent letter from LCA Collections came on May 31 — nearly a year to the day after she got her one and only Covid-19 test from the city-sponsored, Murphy-run clinic.

Baskauf said that she has struck a detente of sorts with the North Carolina-based debt collectors.

Every month, they keep sending her threatening letters saying that she has to pay or else. Every month, she calls LabCorp to ask them to extend the final date of her debt collection by another 30 days to allow for her insurance company to resolve the matter. Every month, LabCorp grants that extension request — and follows up with another threatening letter when the extension has expired.

“I have the money. I could pay it,” Baskauf said when asked why she hasn’t paid the LabCorp bill just to get the debt collectors off her back. ​“But I don’t think I should have to pay $300 for a service that was supposed to be free, and I had been directed to, and that was under the auspices of city government as free Covid testing.”

While the threats to her credit score have been scary, she said, she feels like she knows she can press with her insurance company and the state Office of the Healthcare Advocate if LabCorp gets any more aggressive in trying to get her to pay.

Furthermore, she said, ​“I feel like I have an obligation to see this through and not pay this and continue fighting this. I have to imagine I am not the only New Haven resident in this situation.”

See below for previous coverage of Dr. Murphy’s Covid-19 testing and billing practices in New Haven.

• Cigna Blasts Pandemic ​“Profiteer” Doc
• Covid-Test Doc’s Woes Mount; UNH Bails
• Covid Updates: Homeless Plan Previewed; City Drops Dr. Murphy
• Debt Collector Dogs ​“Free” Covid Testee
• Covid-Free? We’ll Tell You Next Week
• We Got Swabbed In Day Street Park
• Dixwell, Fair Haven Test Sites Readied