Medical Bills and Collections

[Anonymous]

Hello everyone.  VERY long story short, we have some medical bills for our children that we are having some issues with.  Half is on a payment plan but recently 2000 is new debt that is not on a payment plan.  We have been paying our bills off, but they now want this new portion of the bill to be paid off in 10 days or they are sending us to collections.  Their options are;

1)  take out a low interest loan - I refuse to do that.  The point is to pay off the debt not aquire more in interest.

2)  Pay it off - Not an option.

3)  Send them financial paperwork like taxes, savings and checking account information, w2's etc so they can "work" with us.  I filled out less to get a house and this looks like they are building a case against me so I did not fill that out. 

4)  Increase what we are paying them each month.  Well, I can't afford what they say I must pay off each month. 

5)  Put it on a credit card.  - Thats not an option either as there is interest.

I am trying to pay this off and have been faithfull in making my payments.  I just cannot pay it off as fast as they want.  I'm not a deadbeat here, just not rich is all.  I want to avoid being sent to collections as that would destroy my credit and I'm just about to get over 700. 

Do I have any options left?  I tried to tell them you can't get blood from a stone and they can take some of my money till it's paid off or none at all but they won't budge and I CAN'T budge. 

What do I do?

[Anonymous]

I see what you are saying about not getting into interest. However, since they are pushing you to the breaking point, it won't be long before they "decide" you are not in agreement to their terms and you'll wind up in collections on one of them. If I had a credit card available or a short term loan to pay off my medical debt, I would definately not have the medical collections I do now.

I would recommend looking into a small loan, strictly for the balance owed medically. It would be an installment, won't weigh heavily on your score, and you could search for a low interest rate. Plus, if something happens with a small windfall of money, you could throw that at the installment loan (or CC), and pay less overall in interest. If you look online at calculators for loans and credit cards, you can estimate your monthly payment should you place the medical bill on a loan program, and then calculate also how much interest you'd save if you pay a little more than the minimum payment monthly. Odd are the minimum monthly payment to the installment loan or CC is lower than the payment required monthly from the hospital. You could take the difference and apply it to the balance to pay off faster.

You could also look at it like a loan from the hospital. You had the services, and couldn't pay. So they deferred, and now it's interest time. Even with payment plans at hospitals they are allowed to charge a small amount of interest. I know how files can be mixed up and your accounts can be thrown in collections. (As in my case). If you have the avenues to pay them in full and then make the monthly payments to the CC or installment loan, it would be so much safer in my humble opinion.

If you say you are almost to a 700 score, a collection can take almost 100 points away, depending of course. But you could also look into the credit cards that offer 0% interest for six months, like Discover, or Capital One. Basically if you calculate the amount monthly through a credit card or through the hospital, then apply more monthly to the minimum from the credit card, it can be paid off faster and if lucky with 0% interest.

I hope this helps. I would just hate to see anyone with medical collections or deal with their billing practices. It's horrible!

[LIGHTNIN]

May I ask......Who is wanting you to pay the new portion of the bill in 10days?

A drs office or hospital?

If its the drs office, contact the doctor and explain the situation with him/her.

If its the hospital, contact the hospital administrator or their secretary

and see what they can do for you.

Do you have medical ins? Or have applied for medical help?

Hope things work out for you.