The specific portions of the settlement agreement that pertain to medical debt, titled as the Assurance of Voluntary Compliance/Assurance of Voluntary Discontinuance, dated May 20, 2015, is reproduced below, and is the binding definition of the 180-day delay period.
It clearly defines the begin date as the date of first delinquency
Thus, the issue becomes determination of what is the date of first delinquency for the debt.
That depends upon what you signed when treatment was given, which then defines when payment was due.
If you wish to avoid credit reporting entirely, you can try calling and attempting to get a PFD agreement, but that may be a bit risky, as it could cause immediate review of your account, with immediate reporting of their collection as a tool to put collection pressure on you....
“3. Medical Collections
1. To allow appropriate time for insurance remediation and clarity on what a
consumer's individual payment obligation is for a medical account, the CRAs
shall prevent the reporting and display of medical debt identified and
furnished by Collection Furnishers when the date of the first delinquency is
less than one hundred and eighty (180) days prior to the date that the account
is reported to the CRAs.
2. The CRAs shall instruct Collection Furnishers on the use of the Metro 2
special comment codes of "BP" for debt identified as "paid by insurance" and
"AB" for debt identified as "being paid through insurance" and instruct
Collection Furnishers to remove or suppress medical accounts reported as
"paid by insurance" or "being paid through insurance" if such accounts were
in fact paid in full by the consumer's insurance carrier and were not the
obligation of the consumer.
3. The CRAs shall implement a process designed to effectively remove or
suppress known medical collections furnished by Collection Furnishers from
files within the CRAs' respective credit reporting databases when such debt is
reported either as having been paid in full by insurance or as being paid
through insurance.”
