A little more than two years ago, I was forced to change insurance companies due to the Affordable Care Act. As such, my doctor was not covered - though I had not realized it. So, when the doctor's office billed the old insurance company, they understandably declined to pay and the new one was not paying because the doctor was out of network.
Due to the delays in billing between the docs office and insurance companies, about 6 months passed. Someone in the doctor's office, seeing that the bill was still unpaid sent the bill off to collections.
A few months later, I got a letter in the mail from the collections company about the medical bill. Instead of dealing with the collections agency, I went straight to the doctor's office to find out what was going on, discovered insurance had not paid the $209 and I wrote them a check to cover it. They said they would let the collections agency know. That was in late 2014.
Now, the collections account is on my record as closed, and I'm sure it is dragging my score down. After searching here, I discovered that my best met should have been to negotiate a "pay to delete" with the collections agency. Silly me - I figured I was doing the right thing by going and paying the doctor who I owed money.
At this point, what are my options? Can I still arrange a pay for delete with the collections company? If I contact them and they decline, does that reset the date on the account?
Is there anything the doctor's office can do? I feel like I screwed myself by trying to do the right thing, and now I'd just like to clean it up the best way possible.
Thanks for any help!
