Original Creditor doesn't know if they own the account?

[Rebuilding69]

So I have a medical collection on my CR listed by a CA apparently. On TU it shows as Open with a payment status of Unknown. On EQ it shows as Closed with a payment status of Late & payment status details of Unpaid. Both are listed by the same CA with same dates, amounts, etc.

So I called the CA with the intent of PFD hopefully. They wouldn't budge. So I asked who owns the account, and they say the OC still owns the account. So I then call the OC with the intent of PIF in exchange for CA recall, and the lady in the billing dept tells me she doesn't know if they(the OC) still own the account, and won't accept any payments. She said she would have to ask the Collection department to look into it, so I ask t speak to them & she tells me they can't be reached except via in-house, and it would take 2 weeks to find out who owns this account, and to call back at that time. **bleep**?

I know this account is probably legit, and both the OC & CA are legit as well, but something doesn't sound right to me. First off the reporting by the CA is all funked up imo. Secondly, I'm not sure why the OC's Collection Dept can't be reached by anyone except the OC themselves? I thought I was talking to the OC's Collection Dept on the phone, but pparently it was just their Billing Dept?

At this point, I'm thinking I need to use the Hipaa method(with payment to OC) to try & get rid of this listing on my CR's. I'm pretty sure the CA has all the info needed but I guess we'll see once I start. Hipaa method seems really confusing, but I'm guessing it's the best way to handle this at this point? I really don't want to mess with the CA since I know they won't delete.

Any thoughts on this? I've never run across an OC that couldn't tell me if they owned the account or not. The lady from the OC kept asking me what did the CA say about who owned this account? That just seems really strange to me. The OC is an emergency room at the local hospital. Unfortunately I don't qualify for charity on this.

Edit: I do remember hearing about this hospital's inpatient services being moved to another city, but leaving the ER. I'm wondering if something happened along the way with my account(s) & they can't verify/validate now. They know the amount of the account I owe, but they don't know who owns it. Strange.

[RobertEG]

Regardless of whether the OC still owns the debt, they can still insist that any payments be made via the debt collector.

Assuming you do find that the OC still owns the debt, that will do nothing for you unless they then agree to terminate their assigned collection authority to their debt collector before taking payment from you.   It looks as if you may have a lot of persuastion still to do even if they do still own the debt.

The HIPAA process is not discussed here in the forum, so no advice offered there.

The only process I could suggest at this point is to possibly send a DV request, and see if the debt collector validates.

Howver, that will not require a response on thier part, so will not address the fact that they have reported, and it is affcting your scoring.