$5 medical bill from years ago

[Anonymous]

This is something that i just happened to remember the other day. About 5-6 years ago i had a doctors visit. Found out that they didnt have my copay of 25 as accurate so turns out i owed them $5.. After that visit i just happened to change doctors. They continued sending me a bill for $5 which i ignored for months. This was probably around 2010-2011 or so. My credit is trending north so i dont wanna screw anything up. If i contact them to pay, they cant report it as late can they to the 3 CB's? I dont mind paying the ball, i just totally forgot about it. Dont want to poke the bear either though.

[Anonymous]

Personally i would not poke the bear over 5 dollars and it being 5-6 years ago. Im sure people will have different opinions and more information regarding statue of limitations and how it would show if it came on your report. Good luck.

[RobertEG]

They can report if they choose, but the CRA must exclude from your credit report if the exclusion date has expired.

Any collection will have an exclusion date of no later than 7 years plus 180 days from your date of first delinquency.  The CRAs will normally exclude collections at the 7 year mark, so any reported collection would be short-lived on your credit report. 

The creditor could report either monthly delinquencies or a charge-off.  Any charge-off would have the same exclusion date as that of a collection.

However, if the creditor chose to report a current monthly delinquency, it would not become excluded for 7 years from the date of the reported delinquency.

It is highly doubtful that a medical provider would bill and report a delinquency after such a long period of time on such a minimal debt.

Personally, I would take the small risk and not contact them.

[CJ1985]

Earlier this year I had a $7 old medical bill sent to collections that was leftover from what my insurance didnt pay from an old motorcycle accident that I had nearly 4 years ago. They had my wrong address where the bill was sent to, so I never received it. I just paid it via the collections company and then disputed the account with the 3 CB for HIPAA violations. It was removed and I gained my 12 points back that I lost from it showing up on my credit report.