Collections and credit question

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone, have a couple of questions. I had a medical procedure done in January 2019. I let the bill due slip to 90 days past due. A collection agency took over and began contacting me in May 2019. As of now this collection does not show on my credit. How long until this collections can appear on my credit reports? And if I enter a payment plan agreement with them does this prevent them from reporting to the credit bureaus?

[Anonymous]

You can try working with the original creditor and offer to PIF if they will recall the debt. 

Good Luck!

[Anonymous]

I didn’t know you could that? I though they sold the debt off.

[Anonymous]

I believe medical debt cannot be reported to Credit Bureaus until the six month mark. I could be wrong, but I remember reading somewhere that it was extended out that far. 

[KLEXH25]

The company I work at has tried using a collection company to collect on a debt owed us, and the way it worked was that if they were successful in collecting the debt, we’d give them a percentage of the debt. If unsuccessful, they got nothing. So if the customer contacted us directly, we would get the full amount and wouldn’t have to pay our percentage to the collector, so there is definitely incentive for them to settle it directly with you. I don’t know if that’s how it works in all cases, but it’s worth a try.

[RobertEG]

They can report their collection at any time.

However, the CRAs have a new policy, which was the result of a settlement agreement between the big-3 CRAs and the offices of the AG of several states, that they (the CRA) will not post any medical collections until they reach at least 180 days from date of initial delinquency.

The reporting prohibition is NOT imposed on the debt collectors, it is imposed internally by the CRAs by not including a reported medical collection in credit reports they issue until at least 180 days after DOFD.

You thus cannot tell whether or not the debt collector has reported.  If it is paid before expiration of the 180 day period, it will not therafter show in your credit report.

Howver, if they have or do report, it will then be included in your credit report if unpaid after the 180 day excluson period.

[Anonymous]

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@RobertEG wrote:

They can report their collection at any time.

However, the CRAs have a new policy, which was the result of a settlement agreement between the big-3 CRAs and the offices of the AG of several states, that they (the CRA) will not post any medical collections until they reach at least 180 days from date of initial delinquency.

The reporting prohibition is NOT imposed on the debt collectors, it is imposed internally by the CRAs by not including a reported medical collection in credit reports they issue until at least 180 days after DOFD.

You thus cannot tell whether or not the debt collector has reported.  If it is paid before expiration of the 180 day period, it will not therafter show in your credit report.

Howver, if they have or do report, it will then be included in your credit report if unpaid after the 180 day excluson period.

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This ^^^

[Anonymous]

It is medical. So the 180 days starts from when the first 30 days past without payment or when the collections office received the debt?

[RobertEG]

It starts the day after the first billing due date that was not timely paid, which is the date after which payment first became delinquent.

A posted 30-late may be close to the DOFD, but will necessarily be at least 30 days after.  A thirty-late is not reportable until the debt has been delinquent for at least 30 days late.

Additionally, a creditor may delay in first reporting a 30-late, so the actual, legal DOFD may be months before the first reported 30-late.

For that reason, CRAs dont rely on payment history profile to determine the DOFD.  Rather, it is separately and explicitly required to be reported to the CRA no later than 90 days after the debt collector reports their collection.  FCRA 623(a)(5).

The date that a debt collector receives collection authority, the date they first report to a CRA, or any other date associated with their collection is irrelevant to credit report exclusion, which under FCRA 605(c) must occur no later than 7 years plus 180 days from the reported DOFD.

[Anonymous]

Wow this info is amazing. My 180 days is up August 11. Now the question is whether a payment plan agreed with them will stop them from reporting to the credit bureaus.