Delinquent account question

[Anonymous]

I have an old emergency room bill from 2013 that has gone to collection with commonwealth Financial however every time it gets to almost two years they remove the old account and open a new account for the debt dropping my score significantly each time they do this so now the current age of the account is one month vs the actual six years old of the debt, what can I do? Or what is my best option?

[RobertEG]

It is totally proper for a new or updated collection to report to the CRAs at any time if the debt remains delinquent.

When reported, the effective period since initial delinquency is extended to the date of the updated reporting, thus affecting the total reported period of delinquency.  

However, any and all collections reported on the account will be excluded by the CRA from your credit report after the total period since first delinquency has reached 7 years plus 180 days.

The exclusion of collections at no later than 7 years plus 180 days from DOFD applies regardless of whether the debt is paid or remains unpaid, and regardless of when the collection was reported.

Thus, there is no extension of the credit report exclusion date based on reporting of a new or updated collection.

[gdale6]

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@Anonymous wrote:
I have an old emergency room bill from 2013 that has gone to collection with commonwealth Financial however every time it gets to almost two years they remove the old account and open a new account for the debt dropping my score significantly each time they do this so now the current age of the account is one month vs the actual six years old of the debt, what can I do? Or what is my best option?

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Welcome to the board

It can be reported for a max of 7.5 years from the DoFD and what they are doing is a weapon to drop your score in an attempt to stop you from getting new credit until you take care of them. Since yours are old I would start with 4 but you are free to try from 1 if you wish.

Medical collections are some of the easiest to get removed from your CRs, here are the steps that you should follow to address them:

1. Call the OC and see if insurance can be billed, (or-rebilled), collections ultimately paid by insurance get removed per new rules that came from CRAs settlement with 22 state AGs. If not then
2. see if you qualify for Charity Care, if not then
3.  ask that they recall the collection in exchange for full payment
4. Send the reporting CA a PFD offer
5. Google the HIPAA Process and contact its creator for help, this process cannot be discussed in any forum of myFico.