Sorry this is so long. I tried to condense it as much as I could and still get all the pertinent info across.
I posted back in May about a CA who has a bunch of medical collections. I took sidewinder's advice, but the OCs said to deal with the CA. So I DVed them. Well, it took them forever, but they finally sent me copies of all the bills. Unfortunately, the timing was just right--none would have been covered by insurance 
So, they send me "a friendly reminder" and it seems they've combined all the accounts into one. The statement reads like:
Hopsital A: $xxxx.xx
Hospital B: $yyy.yy
Others: $zz.zz (I dispute this non-med one)
and it has only one account number listed instead of the nine that show up on the CRs.
Being too impatient to wait another four months for a retun letter, I called them with questions. Yes, I know...hugely bad idea. Please try not to hate me too much 
But I figured I want answers before 2009 and if they were going to annoy the peanut butter out of me or sue, they would have long before now as this CA is only 15-20 miles away. The one who answered the phone in a nutshell said that they did combine "internally" and one montly payment is just fine. However, she has no idea how it's applied (small balance first, largest first, spread out, randomly...), said they don't send out any confirmations of or other statements on payment plans anymore because it's time-consuming, and--this is the best part--it would be my responsibility to keep track of my balance and check that things get reported correctly.
I ignored all the things wrong with that and asked how they would report a payment agreement. They don't. Basically, as things get paid down, the CRA's would mark stuff as "Paid/was a collection" and that's it. However, it's my understanding from the HIPAA sticky here that a paid collection goes bye-bye.
So here's my question: if the removed-when-paid is true, would there be any reason for me not to just send a money order for each account individually to PIF (the ones I can, which is the majority) so they go away sooner? In my theory, this eliminates any and all guesswork/games as to how a monthly payment would be applied under their quasi-consolidated billing, as well as get collections to go away sooner from the CRs.
Also, should I send the CA the PIFs or the OC? The OC tells me to deal with the CA, but their attitude might change when they have the $ in their hands...
Yeah, the bills they sent me when I DVed were photocopies of the original hospital bills. That much is legit. Where I screwed up is I had gone straight to DV without doing the pre-HIPAA stuff as I was young and stupid (read: before discovering that part of the myFICO forums) back then. So now I'm in "Scenario #1" but with the twist of already talking to the CA and the OC.
What confused me was when the CA sent me a single statement where ALL the collections they're handling--medical and non both--were combined into one amount with one account number. That's why I called them. It made no sense to me.
You answered my question, though, that once the medical ones are paid they are to be deleted. I thought all collections, paid or unpaid, medical or regular, remained for 7 years. This is great news as I can get rid of them earlier than 7 years 
The CA told me otherwise. She said PIF or settled, they just get marked "paid/was a collection" as anything else (i.e., non-medical) would.
Yes, the hospital said to deal with the CA. If you think I should pay the hospital directly, I'll call back and ask again. They recently just merged four hospitals together and the conglomo billing department is, um, still adjusting.