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Is the med collection on your reports?
Yes, 3 new ones as of 01/2009
Is it paid or unpaid?
Unpaid
If unpaid, do you have the money to pay it off in full?
No
Do you remember the date(s) of treatment?
Yes, April 2008
Have you ever disputed the med collection? If yes, when and how?
Never disputed.
Have you ever requested debt validation from the CA? If yes, what did they send you and when did you receive it?
No debt validation requested.
Ok, now that the formalities are done... Here's specifics. My friend went to the hospital last year for chest pains. No insurance. He received a bill for $6,000+ for various tests and the like. He didn't/doesn't have the money to pay it in full. Not sure why he didn't just start making payments but, hey, I guess that's why he's in this position now. There are 3 different collections, 1 for $5,800, 1 for $585, and 1 for $16!!! Yep, $16. I shake my head when I see this. He does not have the money to PFD. The questions he has are:
1) Can he contact the OC and arrange payments through them and have the new collections recalled?
2) If the OC no longer holds the debt, can he make PFD's on the two smaller ones?
3) What options does he have to pay the $5,800 one with the least impact on his credit report?
Thanks,
Fred
Thanks for giving us some background info, it helps a lot. I have some questions before I answer yours. Are all three of these med collections with the same OC? If yes, I assume all three collections are being reported by the same CA?
If your friend can pay the two smaller collections in full, I recommend he use the HIPAA letter process. As for the large collection, there's not much he can do if he doesn't have the funds to pay it off in full. I assume this big collection is for hospital debt, not physician debt.
If this is the case, there is usually no SOL on unpaid hospital debt. Why? Because its considered to be Federal Gov't debt because hospitals receive funding from the Feds to offset huge losses. Since your friend owes a lot of money on this one collection and can't pay it in full, how much can he afford to pay on a monthly basis?
Yes, the large debt is the hospital debt. He doesn't have much available to pay each month. I'd be surprised if he had more than $100 extra. He is getting a sizeable tax return that he wants to use to pay stuff off so I'll advise him to follow the HIPAA letter process.
Ok, he has one other medical collection from 2005. This is also with Russell. The plan I'll give him will be as follows:
1) Make sure he has enough to cover 3 collections, $585, $16, and $120.
2) Send hand written pre-HIPAA letter to CRA's and wait for response.
3) Follow up with different scenario's depending on the response he gets.
Now what should he do about the large one? Should he try and contact the OC and make payment arrangements?
Ok, thanks. It's going to be a loooooooong time before he has 2-3000 to pay and 500 a month. He only makes about 15k a year. That being said, what should he do about this account in the mean time? It's the one that doesn't have a SOL so what's he gonna do, pay $100 a month to a collection agency for 5 years? Doesn't each monthly payment effectively re-age the account? If that's the case, he's looking at 12 years of having a collection account on his report. Hell, he might as well file BK and get rid of it all and use the next 10 years to work on building his credit again.