Hospital immediately sent my statement to collections

[Anonymous]

Hi everyone,

Was involved in a accident where a guy hit me and so i was in the legal process of resolving any personal injury. I had a $300 deductible that took weeks to receieve and I received a call from the hospital stating they want to be paid in full.

The lady was very rude and i told her can we settle at $240 (20%) and she said she can but would have to get approval from her supervisor and she will put in the notes to give me a call back in 24 hours. I never received a call back and 5 days later i get a letter from TSI saying it went to collections.

It’s obviously saturday so little i can do, but would like to know what i can do to resolve this? Would like to pay it in full and removed from my credit (if it is on there now)?

[Brian_Earl_Spilner]

Call or go to the hospital and have them recall the debt in exchange for payment. That's it.

[Anonymous]

Anything i need to do or make sure of? I was going to call them on monday to get this resolved, the collection letter dates 1/12. Im worried about my credit score taking a hit.

[Brian_Earl_Spilner]

If it's already been reported to the bureaus, there's nothing you can do about that for the moment. Once the hospital recalls the debt, the collection should be removed. I would just go in to the hospital to get a receipt, just in case.

[Anonymous]

So this will affect my credit (greatly)? I have not done a annualcreditreport.com in over a year, so do you recommend i wait 30 more days and check this after it has been paid?

[RobertEG]

While not enacted into statute, the CRAs entered into a settlement agreement with the offices of the AG of several states back in May 2015, titled:

“ In the Matter of: Equifax Information Services LLC, Experian Information Solutions, Inc., and Trans Union LLC

Assurance of Voluntary Compliance / Assurance of Discontinuance”

That settlement agreement includes the following specific provisions related to medical collections, which are now legally bindng upon the CRAs:

“3. Medical Collections

1. To allow appropriate time for insurance remediation and clarity on what a

consumer's individual payment obligation is for a medical account, the CRAs

shall prevent the reporting and display of medical debt identified and

furnished by Collection Furnishers when the date of the first delinquency is

less than one hundred and eighty (180) days prior to the date that the account

is reported to the CRAs.

1. The CRAs shall instruct Collection Furnishers on the use of the Metro 2

special comment codes of "BP" for debt identified as "paid by insurance" and

"AB" for debt identified as "being paid through insurance" and instruct

Collection Furnishers to remove or suppress medical accounts reported as

"paid by insurance" or "being paid through insurance" if such accounts were

in fact paid in full by the consumer's insurance carrier and were not the

obligation of the consumer.

1. The CRAs shall implement a process designed to effectively remove or

suppress known medical collections furnished by Collection Furnishers from

files within the CRAs' respective credit reporting databases when such debt is

reported either as having been paid in full by insurance or as being paid

through insurance. “

Thus, any reported medical collection will not be posted to your credit report until after 180 days from DOFD, and even if then posted, will be removed by the CRA if shown to have been paid via insurance.

Are those provisions satisfactory in meeting your needs?

If so, you can rely upon them to have any posted medical collection removed if added more than 180 days from DOFD, or if it is thereafter finally paid via insurance

[Anonymous]

Thanks for posting. Well the incident happened over a year ago (and i was completely unaware of this bill or i wouldve have resolved it sooner). Apparently the bills they have sent did not make it to my mail until about 30-45 days ago, which i stated when they first called to hold off until the insurance company settles (which they did this week). It is basically the deductable from my insurance.

Last week, they called and just to get it over with can we settle to $240. She says ok but a supervisor has to approve and never receieved a call back just a collections letter today.

Wondering how this will impact me (score was 819 last month).

[Anonymous]

If this happened a year ago, they didn't immediately send it to collections.  Your title is misleading.

[Jnbmom]

This was a year ago?? Yes title misleading so responses will not be accurate for the situation , as it appeared this “just happened”

[Anonymous]

Sorry if i made the title misleading, so yes this accident happened about a year ago, however i was not aware of any bills until about a month ago (i did not receive phone calls or a statement until about a month ago).

Anyways i was in the process of resolving it and the moment i spoke to someone to get it resolved I guess they immediately sent it.