@Anonymous wrote:
@Remedios wrote:
Here is a practical example
You have a physician visit. You get the statement. It has a due date. [ Please excuse my lack of understanding. Question: When the physician sends me a statment with a due date, is the DoFD the due date plus one day? If so, is the DoFD immutable? ] Anything past that due considered delinquent account, except provider does not send you to collections right off the bat. They want their money without collection agency taking a percentage. So, next statement is due immediately, just like when you dont pay your credit card in full and you have trailing interest. Same thing applies here. After the first statement, subsequent ones do not give you additional time to pay. It's past due already, and due immediately.
In order to figure out (loosely) when the account became delinquent, you'd need the first statement.
In those rare instances when we send accounts for collections, they want to know when the account became overdue. Here is the kicker. We can say it was 30 days after the statement, 90 days or any day after that initial statement became overdue. There is really no rule, other than provider's tolerance and willingness to send account for collections. However, we are obligated to provide them that date.
If that date is not included in free annual credit report, there is no way to guess how that particular provider treats collection accounts.
Remedios,
Thank you for your patience and for sharing your time and expertise with me.
JWK
You're welcome.
DOFD is (or at least should be) immutable when it comes to reporting and for the most part on issues such as lates, charge offs etc but medical tends to be a bit more gray(ish). I think that's why Robert suggested it's something that would require judge's opinion on when the clock actually started.
I've asked our billing department today because the topic is of interest to me also, so I was told that collection agency requires name, demographic info, amount due and date account became past due. They need this because there is a certain period of time during which CRA will not report to allow for billing issues, insurance issues etc to be resolved. If we do not forward account for 6 months after it became delinquent, it can be reported immediately. In your case, collections are not even reporting, so there is no way to tell which date provider used as past due date. We're not obligated legally to call it delinquent after any period of time, or report it as such.
So, that'sprobably what happened with your September date. Account was past due, but not forwarded yet. September statement served as pre-collection notice. If it was a non profit hospital, pre collection notice is somewhat mandatory, but so is information on financial assistance they offer because ultimately those loses are tax deductible as they get tax breaks for serving low or lower income population without the ability to pay, depending on where they fall on federal poverty levels.
I am very doubtful that September would have been used as DOFD. September statement was the last warning shot.
As far as seeing different language on statements, keep in mind they are generated from billing software, and basically templates.
So, you get a nice statement or two asking you to pay, followed by "pay now", followed by "pay now or else".
That's the crux of the problem.
If provider gives you 30 days to pay, it becomes delinquent on the day following due date. If provider allows 3 weeks for payment, then it's delinquent after 21 days.
One more thing to keep in mind, with medical debt, something on the statement saying "Payment due immediately" is not illegal because it's not regulated. So, again, at provider's discretion and typically open to interpretation. If provider is not a non-profit type, there are few, if any regulations regarding patient payments if they were uninsured or if insurance paid but patient cannot satisfy deductible, out of pocket or copays.
I typed way too much lol
