Medical Collection on CR, question..

[Jon85]

I'm literally ADDICTED to this forum and all of you, lol. Thank you so much for all the help you've given me.

I have a question about Medical bills. I have four in collections that are unpaid. This wasn't intentional, I thought my Charity Care from the hospital (It was an ER visit) would cover the costs, but obviously it didn't.

Now it's been sent to the CA. My question is... is there any way I can get in touch with the hospital or OC and ask them to take it back from the CA so they can remove their entries and then pay the OC directly? Because the OC isn't on my CR... is this possible or legal?

[RobertEG]

If the OC still owns the debt, sure they can accept payment.  So you can always offer.

What you might run up against is:

1.  Many agreements with debt collectors specify that all payments must be made thru the assigned debt collector, so they may be precluded from accepting payment based on their contract with their debt collector.

2.  An OC cannot require a debt collector, even if their assigned agent, to delete their credit reporting.  They can only request.

Payment to the OC will require them to notify the debt collector that the collection is terminated, which requires the debt collector to then report their collection as closed, with $0 under collection.  Deletion on their part is voluntary.

If CR deletion based on payment is the primary goal, directing a pay for deletion offer to the reporting party, the debt collector, will put the decision in the hands of the only one authorized to agree to deletion.