Medical Payment Plan

[MaryJane197]

When dealing with medical debts on your credit report can you offer them payments to pay off a debt?  Say you cant afford to pay it off and its not due to roll over your report for a long time.  But you do want to show that your paying it to get it off your CR.  Can you offer them a payment plan to get it paid off?  If you do do they have to take it off your report?  Or is that only if you pay it all in full in one payment?

[fused]

You can offer a payment plan and make regular payments. This will not improve your FICO score though. Once a medical collection is marked as paid and has a $0 balance, you will then want to use the HIPAA letter process to have it deleted. Please see the HIPAA thread in my sig lin.

How much debt do you owe? Are you sure these debts are yours? Doctor or hospital debt? How old? How many collections?

[MaryJane197]

Well i owe almost 4k in debt on my credit report.  The bills are mine.  The dates are the ones where i had to go to the emergency room to be seen due to having no health insurance.  The debts arent due to roll off my report for awhile.  Im not worried about them raising my score once paid.  I just want them paid off.  But due to so much else that i have to pay i wont have the extra money to pay these off in a lump sum.  Im trying to get a mortgage and since these will be overlooked then i just want to pay on them to get them paid.  I have 12 collections on my CR.  Its a hospital emergency room i owe to but is turned over to a CA now. There recent bills from last year.  I now have a job that has insurance so i wont be racking up ER bills in the future.

I already read your HIPPA thread.    It didnt say anything about making payments.  It was more stating pay in full.  Thats why i wanted to ask.  Wasnt sure if they took them off your CR until they were paid off or during when you were paying on them.

[fused]

Well, there are times when an unpaid collection does get deleted. If the CRA cannot verify the collection it has to be removed. Since you are in payment plan, the HIPAA process is not applicable. Using HIPAA would likely result in you being served papers and getting slammed with a medical judgment, then you would really be stuck. HIPAA cannot remove a public record, only collections. It sounds like you don't have much choice, so I would continue paying...it will help avoid a judgment.

[MaryJane197]

Oh im not currently paying on them.  I was just asking if i could offer them a payment plan.

[fused]

oh, my bad! When was the last time the CA(s) called you or wrote to you? Do you know the last time the CA(s) updated the collections on your report?

[MaryJane197]

If they have called or wrote i havent known about it.  Havent opened any mail from them.  But they updated each account, i have two medical accounts on my CR.  The first one they updated on March/08 and the second was updated on 12/08

[fused]

This is a tough call! How long ago were these trips to the ER? How much can you afford to pay per month?

[MaryJane197]

One was at the end of 07 and the other was at the beginning of 08.  I can afford to pay 10 a month per bill on them.  Not much but its a start.  My sister says she pays 5 dollar a month to her medical bills and that they accept that.

Message Edited by MaryJane197 on 01-09-2009 07:49 PM

[fused]

I'm going to discuss your case with HappyDays to avoid any confusion. I suspect he and I will have differing ideas on what you should do. Hang tight!