Any medical collection must become excluded from your credit report no later than 7 years plus 180 days from the DOFD on the account with the original creditor. See FCRA 605(c).
The debt collector is required under FCRA 623(a)(5) to obtain the DOFD and report it to the CRA no later than 90 days after they have reported their collection, so the DOFD should be of record in your credit file.
The first step is to obtain the reported DOFD. Many commercial credit reports do not provide the reported DOFD, but rather provide an estimated exclusion date, which is usually provided by the CRA based on a 7 year period from the reported DOFD.
If, after obtaining the DOFD, you determine that more than 7 years plus 180 days has expired from that date, then simply contact the CRA and advise of their non-compliance with the strict exclusion requirment of FCRA 605(c).
However, after obtaining the DOFD, if you determine that the full 7 years plus 180 days has not expired, then you can contact the CRA and request an early exclusion. The CRAs rountinely grant their own early exclusion at approx. 7 years from the DOFD. If you wish an even earlier exclusion, you must contact the CRA and request their voluntary early exclusion. The CRAs will normally not grant an additional early exclusion of any greater than 3-6 months.
Finally, if after obtaining the reported DOFD, you disagree with its accuracy, you can file a dispute of the accuracy of that reporting, along with your supporting documentation.
If you can establish an actual DOFD that is more than 7 years plus 180 days prior, then immediate credit report exclusion of the collection is then required.
