TONS of medical bills in the past, but now rebuilding

[Anonymous]

So, a little background....

I'm 26 now. When I was younger (18 - 22) I didn't have medical insurance and had medical/mental health issues which I would go to the hospital for (still have these issues, but now only go if I have insurance and if not I just go to a free or sliding scale clinic). I racked up a hefty amount of medical bills and never paid on any of them, and naturally they got sent to collections. At that time, I didn't care because I was younger and why did a credit score matter to me then? Also people had always told me that medical bills on a credit report don't really matter because medical bills were weighed differently, blah blah. 

Well, fast forward to me being like 24 and needing a car loan because I needed a different car, and not a $500 one from craigslist. Got the usual, "sorry, your credit sucks, we'll only vaguely consider you if you have a cosigner" (and I don't)) from most places. Except one place was one of those, "if you make xxx amount per week, even with bad credit, we'll finance you!" places. I was shocked to find out how much they'd approve me for. So despite the high interest rate I decided to go for it because I needed a car and had to start somewhere with my credit. It was through a local credit union.

Previously when I had tried to use the Credit Karma app (yes I know it's a FAKO, but it is what it is) it told me my file was too thin to even give me a score. Then when I got that first car loan, I got a notification that I finally had enough to give me a credit score. I believe it was in the mid 400's at that time. I treated that car loan well and paid it off early and never missed a payment. I believe after I got that car loan was when I started getting serious about my credit. I had about 29.....yes 29.....derogatory marks  (all unpaid medical bills) on my credit report and some of them started to fall off of my report last year. I have no other types of derogatory remarks on my credit report other than those stupid medical bills. I ended up getting an Open Sky card, a Cap One Secured, Build card (they suck but at the time I didn't care, I plan on closing this one once I figure it's safe enough and won't hurt my score), Discover IT secured. Also got approved for a small $800 limit care credit, and used the SCT to get a very small limit for express, JCrew and overstock. None of which I have used but intend to use once I need new dress clothes for work and then pay off right away. Randomly got pre-approved for an unsecured card through my bank (Citizens Bank) for $1600 which amazed me based on the amount of medical bills I have in collections. After that first car loan also ended up having to get rid of that car and getting a new car loan for a higher amount, which I paid off in full shortly afterwards. My credit score on CK was in the 640s prior to my second car loan and dropped way down to the low 600s after the second loan. Now that my car loan is paid off I'm waiting for that to be reported to see how it affects my score again. 

I am moving soon and had found issues in getting an apartment due to my credit (who knew that apartments check credit, I had thought that it only mattered that I'd never been evicted (I haven't been)). So this motivated me to improve my credit even more.

As I said before, none of my credit cards or car loans have ever been late on payments. I carry a 3% utilization on my credit cards now and pay off in full each month if I can, otherwise carry a very low balance and always pay more than the minimum due. I know that my AAoA is very low, and will probably not be that great for awhile based on the fact that I had 4 new accounts open within a couple week span (the SCT accounts and the citizens card that I was approved for, none of them generated a HP but only a SP). I know that I shouldn't apply for any new accounts for awhile.

So TLDR, does anyone else have experience with a large amount of medical bills in collections and rebuilding their credit? More of my medical debt is scheduled to fall off in 2019, but honestly I have no way of repaying the majority of this medical debt and besides I've heard that trying to pay on it can do more harm than waiting for it to fall off. Are medical debts really weighed as heavily as other debts? Is there anything else I should do while I wait for my medical bills to fall off of my report? 

[rmduhon]

First thing you need to do is pull your actual reports from annualcreditreport.com if you haven't already done so in the last 12 months. This will show you the Date of First Delinquency (DoFD) or estimated date of removal. You may be able to get early exclusions for some of the accounts. Second, get your actual Fico 08 scores from creditchecktotal.com, they gave a 7 day trial for $1. It could be way different from Credit Karma. What is the Build card? If it's a bad card then you have enough other cards to close it without hurting you, assuming that it won't increase your utilization.

[Anonymous]

Does pulling my credit report from those sites hurt my credit score? (Is it a hard pull?) Right now I'm just going off of my reports in Credit Karma. Both Capital One and Discover have their own credit monitoring thing too where I can view whatever Cap One uses, and Discover offers my FICO which said it was 638 in the beginning of May. 

The Build card is just an unsecured card for people with poor credit. They charge an annual fee which is billed in one lump sum for the first year, then billed monthly after the first year. That's something I admit I didn't really care about at the time when I opened it because I just wanted to build my credit, but now I'd rather not pay a stupid monthly fee for the card when I don't even really use it. It's not a high limit card, only $500. I've had it for a little over a year now.

[rmduhon]

Pulling your reports is a soft pull that can't be seen by anyone but you. It's the same way with Credit Karma, whenever you get an update on it its a soft pull. You're just going straight to the source. Cap1 uses Vantage scores like Credit Karma does. I'd ditch the Build card in that case unless it raises your utilization if you do.

[Anonymous]

Ditch the AF secured card.
Google the HIPPA process.

[Anonymous]

I got a copy of my credit report and although it's still 2 years away...19 of my derogatory remarks will fall off of my report in 2019, so that's a relief. The most recent ones are from 2016 which makes me mad because if I had started to care this much about my credit report last year I could have prevented the new ones, but oh well now. One of them is only for 28 dollars but I have multiple collections from that one bill collector so I figure they won't let me pay just one and not the others.

[Anonymous]

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@Anonymous wrote:

I got a copy of my credit report and although it's still 2 years away...19 of my derogatory remarks will fall off of my report in 2019, so that's a relief. The most recent ones are from 2016 which makes me mad because if I had started to care this much about my credit report last year I could have prevented the new ones, but oh well now. One of them is only for 28 dollars but I have multiple collections from that one bill collector so I figure they won't let me pay just one and not the others.

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Don't wait two years.  Do as Vizion suggests and Google the HIPAA process.  We can't go into details here on how it works but you'll find the info on the web and Iir is designed specifically to remove medical collections from your reports.  Good luck.

[gdale6]

For unpaid medical debt that is reporting on your CR:

1. Call the OC and see if you qualify for Charity Care
2. If not then ask that they recall the collection in exchange for full payment
3. Send the reporting CA a PFD offer
4. Google the HIPAA Process and contact its creator for help

[Anonymous]

I'm waiting anxiously for my new cards from the SCT to arrive. It hasn't been long enough for them to arrive in the mail, but I'm still worried that Comenity will shut them down due to the things I've read on here about them shutting down account recently. I have 6 or 7 inquiries on my reports, 3 of which will fall off by September but I've read that Comenity is sensitive to that and also sensitive to opening new accounts rapidly. I don't know. I got Express, Jcrew, Overstock and William Sonoma. In retrospect I could have gone without Overstock, but the other 3 I will definitely use once I move in July, when I'm closer to physical locations for Express, JCrew and WIlliam Sonoma. I think I got 3 in a 24-48 hour period and 1 a few days later. When my new Citizens Bank CC arrived, my score jumped up by 16 points. My current AAoA after that is 10 months which I know sucks, but it will grow with time.