Anyone have experience with Sentara Collections?

[Anonymous]

Background:

Sentara medical bill for my wife's surgery on Feb 2014 for $1235. EOB from medical insurance jives, they paid their portion and $1235 is the co-insurance

Wife and I physicall separated in June 2014 but divorce papers are not yet filed

Today:

Received Warrant in Debt for me and soon to be ex. General District Court date is June 18. 

Sentara has not reported this on my credit report (as of today)

Plan of action:

- Call Sentara Collections and enter into a payment plan in order to avoid a possible judgement and negative entry on my CR

- Continue making payments to Sentara until the debts are split as part of the divorce decree.

- VA is kinda fuzzy as far as joint medical bills during separation so it's possible that i will get stuck with making payment until the debt is paid off

Any thoughts? suggestions?

[truckerwife]

Have you been making payments on them at all?  I've dealt with them and as long as payments are consistantly being made, they haven't pursued a judgement.   I'm surprised they already went that far? Sentara typically loves to send things off to PRA.

Best of luck! 

[gdale6]

I would verify that court case is actually real directly with the courthouse. If its real you want to make an agreement with them to settle in exchange for the suit being dropped. One other thing if you are not in a Community property state and you didnt sign as guarantor you may not be liable for this at all, I would consult a lawyer on this.

[Anonymous]

thanks! No, I haven't made a single payment. I'm guessing Sentara forwarded the bills to my wife so I didn't see it until today. I matched it against my EOB so the amount and date of service all jive. 

I'm thinking Sentara may just agree to $75/monthly payments and avoid going to court if I just called them and take responsibility for the bill.

[Anonymous]

thanks gdale6! yeah I'm gonna call a lawyer and see if i can get a free consult over the phone, perhaps get more clarity on where I stand before I call Sentara

[Anonymous]

looking back on my files, I received a similar Warrant in Debt from Sentara in 2012 for different hospital bill. My daughter went to the ER, the insurance company sent payment to the wrong Sentara branch. I called Sentara and they verified payment was made in full so they dropped the whole thing. this one is for a different hospital visit though