Billed For A Stranger's Medical Bill (tx)

Location: Texas, USA

Hello! I'm not sure if this is necessarily a legal matter yet, but I'm not too sure where else to post it.

Around December 2025, I received a bill in my mail addressed to me from a medical (mental health) clinic that I visited back in 2023 for treatment (I fully paid for my bill at the time of treatment). The bill I received in 2025 was for around $1000 for a patient with a name similar to mine (same last name, different first name with the same first letter). The bill listed me (ex Jane Doe) as the guarantor and the stranger (ex Jill Doe) as the patient. The bill is listed under my account number, and the bill only shows the amount due after insurance and the date of service (October 2025). There's no other identifying patient information or treatment information. I have never met anyone with the same name as the patient before, so it's a complete stranger to me. I checked my claims history for 2025 and there's nothing related to this bill, so my insurance was not used for it.

I called the clinic and explained the situation to them. They said they would look into it and remove the patient from my account but that it might take a while. I gave it some time and heard nothing back from them. A month later I received another bill notice in the mail. Called the clinic back again, they said it's being worked on but they'll add a note about it on my account to ensure it gets resolved. Same thing a month later- bill in mail, call, they said they'll escalate it and fix the issue. No follow up from them, and I stopped getting the bill in my mail so I thought it was resolved.

Then I started getting calls from a medical debt collection agency for this bill. I explained the situation to the collection agency, and they were very understanding and said they would contact the clinic and look into it. I also called the clinic back and told them the situation again. The person I spoke with said they could see the note on my account and that they will forward the issue to their billing department to work on it and they would call back. This was last week, and I haven't heard back from them yet. I'm hoping it'll get fixed this time with the debt collection agency being involved now, but I will call the clinic again at the end of this week to make sure.

Hopefully it'll all be resolved after this round, but I wanted to know if there were any potential legal recourse I will have to make if it doesn't get fixed soon.

Thanks for any advice or insight on this!