@Anonymous wrote:
Okay, the deal is this, I make the appointments for my kids to go to the dentist, but my husband has brought them every time. If anyone has ever had to sign for anything (I don't know because I've never even been to the business), he has done it. He doesn't recall if he has signed anything, but I am sure he had to at some point. The insurance is in his name as well.
ANYWAY, because they were waiting for our insurance to come through and see what we owed, by the time they sent a bill, it was over $1k. Not something that I can just pull out of my pocket and pay, in other words. So two days ago I got a bill in the mail in my name for $1200+ for the kids dentist bill and it says that it's past due (I'm sure it is because the appointments were long ago and we thought insurance was covering it then got a phone call saying that we had an outstanding balance due to things they performed that insurance did not cover (laughing gas being one and veneers on our 5yr old dd, iirc.). ANYWAY so now I am getting a bill saying that I owe this money and it's 90+days overdue.
I have no problem paying this bill no matter whose name it is in and will over time (will have to make payments). My main issue is that now it's going to show a baddie on my credit.
Since I have never been and I've never signed anything and DH has, shouldn't it be in his name? Is this a fight that I can rightfully fight and get them to put it in his name? (His credit is laughable, anyway so a 90+ day late won't have any effect on his. I currently have no negatives on for late bills and I don't want this to be on there!)
edit to clarify: This will not report as a 90-day on your credit reports, but if it truly worries you (which is understandable), you might try to get that in writing from your dentist's office. There's a good chance that they won't know what you're talking about though. If you don't pay, and they send you to collections, the collection will be on your credit reports.
Here's why you're OK:
The 90-days that we so commonly see on medical bills is different from the 90-day lates on credit reports. With those, which come from lenders with whom you've entered a credit agreement, it means that they billed you, you didn't pay, they billed you 30 days later (there's the first 30 on your reports), you didn't pay, same again the next month (now they report a 60), and so forth.
But a medical or dental provider isn't a lender of credit in the usual manner, and it's very common to have something like this on your statements, especially when the insurance bailed.
I've had stuff like this pop up in the mail, sometimes even threatening to send me to collections, when I never knew it was out there. I paid, and nothing was ever reported.
Medical accounts aren't credit accounts per se. All that hits your credit reports from medical stuff, AFAIK, are collections if it gets that bad.
btw, does your dentist's office send EOB's (estimation of benefits)? These will say something like, the charges are so-and-so, submitted to insurance, amount due pending insurance/ third-party reimbursement: $0. They're horribly confusing, IMO, but they're worth saving just in case something like this pops up 6 months later.
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eta: (Did some more checking.) In the end, what matters is that doctors and dentists (and Verizon, and AT&T, and parking ticket offices, etc etc) don't report to credit bureaus on a regular basis, in the sense that they don't send monthly updates of your balances and payment amounts. You only show 30's and 60's and 90's and whatnot when a business routinely reports. But any business can send you to collections --your dentist, your auto mechanic, your plumber, whatever --and THAT can be reported. That's why collections are in a different area on your credit report.
So if you pay your bills to these other businesses before they send you to collections, nothing gets reported, no matter how late they say the bill is.
Note: some utility companies do report lates, even though they otherwise don't report. I'd like to think that there's a special place in Heck for them. IMO, if they report negative behavior, they should also report positive behavior, i.e., monthly clean history created by timely payments. And of course, they can also send you to collections and report that as well. But that's very much an exception.
* Credit is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. * Who's the boss --you or your credit?
FICO's: EQ 781 - TU 793 - EX 779 (from PSECU) - Done credit hunting; having fun with credit gardening. - EQ 590 on 5/14/2007
I've just been working hard on mine and to get that bill and see the late thing made me gasp and, yes, I was very upset.
