hospital sent bill to collections

I hope this helps you

Do medical bills affect credit?

Unlike a bank or credit union, your doctor's office probably doesn't have a direct relationship with the three major credit bureaus that collect data and isn't regularly reporting your payment information.

In most cases, credit bureaus get word about your medical debt only if it goes unpaid.

As of Sept. 15, 2017, there's a 180-day waiting period before unpaid medical debts can show up on people's credit reports.

Eventually, your medical provider may turn over an unpaid debt to a collections agency. The collector will then contact you and try to get you to pay up. At this point, your unpaid bill probably is showing up on your credit reports as having gone to collections.

This is where things get messy, because the information on your credit reports is used to create your credit scores. Failure to pay a bill affects the biggest factor determining your credit scores: payment history. Consequently, having a medical bill in collections can result in serious damage to your credit scores.

There is a way out, however: Medical collections will drop off a credit report if the bills are paid by a health insurer.

Can medical bills be removed from my credit report?

If your medical bill is in collections by error and is hurting your credit score, you're probably wondering if it can be removed. If the bill is less than 180 days old or if it has now been paid by insurance, you should be able to dispute it and have it removed. Here are the steps to take:

1. Gather evidence. Collect as much documentation as you can to prove the bill was paid. Ask for payment records from your doctor's office, find copies of canceled checks or dig up old credit card statements.
2. File your dispute with any credit bureau that's reporting the error. Make sure to check all your credit reports from all the three bureaus.
3. Keep communicating. The Fair Credit Reporting Act requires the credit bureaus to follow up on all credit reporting error disputes. Keep communicating with the companies to check on the status of your dispute, and be prepared to provide additional documentation if requested.

There's no guarantee the error will be removed from your credit report. But the effort is worth it because poor credit scores can make borrowing money really expensive.

What if insurance didn't or won't pay?

Medical debt collections have to come off the reports if the health insurance company pays up. But what if you don't have insurance, you can't get the insurer to pay or you get tired of waiting on insurance and pay off a collections account yourself?

Collections accounts can take up to seven years to drop off your credit report.

The damage to your credit depends on the type of scoring model and the version used by a potential creditor to check your creditworthiness.

FICO 8, the credit scoring model most lenders rely on, treats collections accounts the same, no matter whether they're paid or unpaid. So the damage has been done regardless of whether you pay — although paying will get the bill collector off your back and remove the risk of it suing you for payment.

The FICO 9 scoring model and the VantageScore 3.0 disregard collections accounts that have been paid. FICO 9 will weigh medical bills in collections less heavily than other types of unpaid accounts. However, FICO 9 is not in widespread use by lenders.

Collections accounts can take up to seven years to drop off your credit report, although the impact on your credit score will lessen over time. To help your score rebound, the best thing to do is keep good credit habits, such as paying your other bills on time and keeping your credit card balances low.

Can I stop medical bills from landing on my credit report?

You can take some steps to prevent future medical bills from affecting your credit.

• Follow up with your insurance company. Know the ins and outs of your insurance policy and follow up by phone or email to make sure the company is paying the bills it has agreed to cover. Many people end up in collections because they assume their insurer paid a bill that it didn't.
• Negotiate unmanageable bills. When you can't afford to pay a bill, contact your medical provider and try to negotiate it down. If you're successful, get the new amount you owe in writing so that you have a record of your agreement in case of a future dispute.
• Consider hiring a billing advocate. If you're overwhelmed by your bills and aren't sure how to proceed, think about hiring a medical billing advocate. This professional can sort through your bills and try to negotiate them on your behalf.
• Crowdfund your medical bill. Set up a fundraiser with a crowdfunding site such GiveForward to get help with your bills from family, friends and strangers — though it's not a surefire way to pay off medical debt.

Updated Oct. 3, 2017.

Hi,

Just my 2cents. I used to do medical billing for dr's and hospitals many years ago and dealt with insurance companies. I'm not getting the whole routine physical. Thats not something a surgeon would typically use. Initial office, new patient visit yes, but routine would imply you were going for a general check-up. Honestly sounds totally the hospital billing dept's problem. Believe me they do hundreds a day and have no problem flipping to collections even if they are wrong. My understanding, and i could be wrong and I would check with your ins co on this, is that the dr. accepts your ins. its their obligation to bill it correctly and unless it is for services that are not covered by your contract, which you should be told up front about, you should not be responsible for more than copay and or co-insurance.

Maybe call your insurance co. Get a supervisor, log their name. Explain it again and ask them to advise you of your liability since you did not have a routine physical (im assuming thats true). That it was a consult for possible surgery. Nothing routine about it. Why should i have to pay for their error. See what the supervisor says. Sometimes they actually do pay just to kick it out of their system. Keep detailed notes. Its a task, but better to have it all detailed. They like to say Oh we never received that or have no record of that call. Also if you have not done so already, call the collection agency and explain that you are dealing with the insurance company and the hospital. They can put a hold on it and stop sending you notices.

If it is indeed your responsibility which I can't see how, then making a call to collections and explain financial hardship, they normally will reduce the fee. At some point it costs more to keep after a person to collect than the bill is worth.

It's the last thing we need to worry about, but unfortunately it happens.

When I was diagnosed with Stage IV Metastatic, I was a newlywed and a new dependent on my husband's insurance. Every claim was denied because insurance company said it was a recurrence and they needed to check and make sure that 2 years had passed since I was last treated, or they wouldn't pay. This should have taken days but it took 6 months. Mail every day with 10-15 bills and collection notices. The insurance company told me that EVERY SINGLE DOCTOR that I had seen would have to fill out a form that said they had not seen me before. Even pathologists and biopsy surgeon. I had no idea how long I would live; I wasn't sure I had 6 months. And here I was sobbing on the phone, begging admins to personally hand a form to the doctor to sign and please fax to insurance co., ASAP. At one time I had a list of 16 names, at two different hospitals. I finally resorted to tweeting that I was dying of cancer and my insurance company was stonewalling me. I finally got someone from insurance co. to notice my tweet and push through the claims. My credit was ruined even though Claims were paid. I have so many $20 co-pays falling through the cracks and going to collections. It’s insane that a hospital will accept my insurance payment of $4,000 but won’t forgive my $20 co-pay.

I’m sharing to convey that sometimes you have to try a different hammer if the nail still won’t go in. Tweet. Call patient advocate. And if preserving your credit is important, and you can’t get resolution, go ahead and pay the amount. Once a bill goes to collections, the debt is bought and sold, and trying to track down who to pay is a nightmare. Once the hospital (happily) sends it to collections, they don’t care

Keep us posted. I was told by BC/BS not to pay anything until I got the EOB from them. I heeded their advice because there were several doctors offices wanting/demanding I pay up when I checked out. I didn’t. They can access what the insurance will and will not pay and how much. Unfortunately they still try to bully patients to offset the patients who don’t have insurance.

By the way when you guys do apply for a house the lender will give you an opportunity to explain your medical bills if they show up on your credit report. They know most people can’t write them a blank check for expensive medical procedures.

Diane

When I had my first child , we got a bill from Anesthesia. At that time we had PPO insurance which drs/hospital took. I refused to pay. I was supposed to ask the anesthesiologist before he hits me with t^{he epidural and say, Excuse me, but do you take my ins? I think not. I fought with the ins company and it was paid.}

^{I'm sure you will get this resolved, it will be a headache, but you will.}

hi skimnle, I haven't read all the replies but will give you my two cents having gone thru something similar. When you get the next bill or talk to someone in collections, simply relay what the insurance company told you. It iis the hospitals responsibility to bill insurers correctly, not yours. You should just repeat what you've been told, that the charges are covered when billed correctly, so the hospital has to contact the insurance company if they don't know what to do. That's not your job. If the person you talk to pushes back, ask for a supervisor and repeat. Clearly the two parties talked once before so they can do it again.

I went thru this for years on a $20K IVF cycle and I never paid a dime or had longer than a two minute conversation. The collection company wants to get paid. You'e giving them the way to do it. Don't take it on as your personal responsibility. Hang in there!

Definitely file an appeal with the insurance company. My DH and I did that over a $5k bill. We have BC/BS. They charged us OON. The test for my DH was only available at one hospital that wasn’t in network. The doctor didn’t do her due diligence and file for an exception so we had to appeal to BC/BS. It took multiple phone calls and paperwork but in the end we won our appeal.

The hospital told us it was the doctors fault which in part it was. The hospital however, shoujd have informed us of the cost since it was OON giving us the opportunity to go ahead or not since the charge was on us. They didn’t but to their credit(no pun intended)they didn’t bill us the balance of $1000 after insurance paid.

Squeaky wheel gets the grease. Don’t take no for an answer until you’ve exhausted every option.

A friend who worked for doctors for years told me persistence pays off. It did for us.

Diane