Paid Medical Collection - HIPAA or GWL?

[Anonymous]

BUMP - we would like to buy a house in the next year and need to improve his score for that, I would love advice as to HIPAA process or GWL.....

I am confused about which route to take.  My now husband had his nose bitten by a dog in 2004.  Because of disputes with his insurance company about who should pay, he had 3 accounts sent to collection in 2005.  He paid those immediately (they are still on his credit reports as paid).  We checkeded our credit reports in August 2008 and discovered one further account in collection.  He had never been told about this (by the hospital, or the Collection Agency they passed it to), but thinks it was his (it was sent to collection in 2007).

I wish I had read this forum first, but we paid the outstanding amount ($1028), and although he asked (verbally) for them to remove it from his credit report, they have not.  His credit score has now dropped by up to 90 points (EQ671, EX652, TU606), they were all around 700 before we paid.

I have been reading the forums and I'm wondering:

1.  Does HIPAA apply to this situation?  Is it the Credit Reporting Agency or the Collection Agency we should write to to remove paid medical collections from credit reports?  I was confused by the pre-HIPAA letter stating "I have no knowledge or records of account # xxxxx from xxxxxx on my report # xxxxx." because clearly we do have knowledge of the account as we paid it.

2.  Is it better to just send a good will letter to the Collections Agency and ask them to remove it?  As they never notified him that the debt was going to go on his CR should I mention that it is a violation of the FCRA requirement to send a Dunning letter?

 

If HIPAA applies I think that is the better route as the are legally obliged to remove it, rather than just doing it because they are being kind (although FCRA violation gives it a little more clout).

Thanks!  Any help anyone can give is appreciated as I am VERY confused.

[happyus]

Ok, Im new here, but I have been reading TONS & TONS of information. It is from my understanding after reading all these forums that in your situation that you would send the pre hippa letter to the CRA's.  By stating that you dont have knowledge of the accounts the CRA's have to investigate your claim.  So when the CRA's try to investigate your claim with the CA's they will not be able to do so because the medical bills are PAID, and according to hippa the CA's have no right to your priviledged medical info after the bill is paid so they will not be able to validate to the CRA, therefore the claim will have to removed from your report. 

After days and and days of reading and researching on here, that is MY understanding, but someone PLEASE correct me if I am wrong because I am dealing with these same issues myself and this is how I am handling them.   

[Anonymous]

That's the gist of it happy, but follow the process EXACTLY.

All paid medical collections should be handled with the HIPAA process. Most of the time it works easily.

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much happyus and likewise.  I hadn't quite understood why the CRA's would have to remove the reference, but that makes sense.  We will try it!