Bills from bankrupt hospital

[Anonymous]

I have just discovered bills in collections on my bf's credit report and I'm trying to help him improve it. These bills are from 2012, from a small hospital that just went bankrupt. They had a history of not billing to insurance companies correctly. I called the new hospital, they took down his name and said that the bankrupt company was going to be working part time for a little while to tie up their work but they had no idea how long it would be before he was even contacted. My translation: this may take forever and we may not get anywhere with it.

So what would be the best thing to do to get them removed? I have about 3 months to try and improve his credit to help him with getting a loan. Should we contact the Collections Agencies?

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

Should we contact the Collections Agencies?

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Has the debt been turned over to a collections agency (that is, a debt collector)? Or did you mean the Credit Reporting Agencies (the agencies who keep track of your credit reports)?

It might be worthwhile to dispute the debt with the Credit Reporting Agencies (CRAs). When you do, the CRA will ask the data furnisher (the hospital) to investigate it, and the data furnisher has either 30 or 45 days to complete the investigation and respond. It may be that because things are such a mess over there right now, that they won't meet their deadline and the debt will be removed from the credit report (note: this doesn't necessarily eliminate the debt, just the reporting).

I should add that you should not file a frivolous dispute. Legally, you should only do this if you have a legitimate dispute.

[RobertEG]

Do you have a legitimate basis for showing inaccuracy in reported information?

[Anonymous]

I do feel that we have a legitimate reason to report these inaccurate. There were no notices sent that this debt existed, yet it apparently exists in collections. The health insurance was supposed to pay the full cost, but this hospital often billed incorrectly. Since there was never a notice sent for this debt, I feel that it is legitimately inaccurate. You cannot pay a debt if you don't know that it exists, right?

I tried once to dispute the information with credit bureaus but had no luck. It was investigated and found to be accurate. I'm just positive that it is inaccurate and don't know how to prove that or convince the bureaus.