@Ladypit wrote:
In November 2011 I was involved in a car accident. I was hit by a truck on my way to work. I was off work for 4 months without pay (since I hadn't been on my job a year yet I didn't qualify for FMLA). While off work, my employer held my job for me thankfully. But they also canceled my health insurance. So while I was in the hospital and undergoing physical therapy, I had no insurance. My husband got me a lawyer while I was making progress to get back to work. While going through the settlement process and all that headache, the hospital sent my medical bills to collections, even though my lawyer contacted them to tell them what was going on. Needless to say, they are on my credit report. They were paid in full immediately after a settlement was reached. Now it shows on my credit report "PAID". But since its a recent collection, it's killing my credit score. Any suggestions on what I should do to fix this? I disputed it with no avail.
Shame on that Hospital for sending your bills to collections, when you were going through a settlement phase!
One thing to try is to go back to their billing and try working up the chain to the folks that matter...the CEO/President of the Hospital. The Hospital can have the baddies on your credit removed, it's just a matter of getting to the person that can make it happen. There's got to be a Manager of Finance for the Hospital, who oversees collections. Try that person. If no success, try for a General or Operations Manager for the Hospital. If no success there, try for the CEO or President of the Hospital. In each case try a Goodwill letter, explaining your situation as you've explained it here, but perhaps in more details to provide specific dates of the incident and dates of service, dates of payments, etc.
If no results, see if the Hospital has a Facebook or Twitter account. Try posting something there. That can frequently get their attention when there's negative info out there in the "twittersphere" for all to read. Also try the Better Business Bureau for your area; certainly that hospital would be a member.
