Pay Medical collection if they won't delete?

[valley_man0505]

So, I've been away from the forums for quite some time as I was on a good path with rebuilt collections.  Now, I've lost track over the years as to how some of this works and/or if anything has changed.  I recently had an accident that resulted in a major knee surgery.  I had bills flying in from every direction since you get bills from 4 different places just for the surgery and then follow up appointments and rehab come from yet another couple different places.  Well, now I have 4 collections that popped up and each are only about $50-$70 and this TANKED my scores by almost 100 pts with each bureau.  Will paying them even help my score if they won't delete?  In the past, I remember that just the presence of a collection hurts your score just as much regardless of the amount (i.e. a $0 collection hurt just as much as a $1,000 collection, so there wasn't much incentive to pay unless they agreed to delete from a score standpoint).  I do think I heard that bureaus were at least beginning to consider handling medical collections differently in their scoring models and maybe even allow collections to be removed altogether once paid if they were medical.  I don't know if anything ever happened with that, though.

[SouthJamaica]

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@valley_man0505 wrote:

So, I've been away from the forums for quite some time as I was on a good path with rebuilt collections.  Now, I've lost track over the years as to how some of this works and/or if anything has changed.  I recently had an accident that resulted in a major knee surgery.  I had bills flying in from every direction since you get bills from 4 different places just for the surgery and then follow up appointments and rehab come from yet another couple different places.  Well, now I have 4 collections that popped up and each are only about $50-$70 and this TANKED my scores by almost 100 pts with each bureau.  Will paying them even help my score if they won't delete?  In the past, I remember that just the presence of a collection hurts your score just as much regardless of the amount (i.e. a $0 collection hurt just as much as a $1,000 collection, so there wasn't much incentive to pay unless they agreed to delete from a score standpoint).  I do think I heard that bureaus were at least beginning to consider handling medical collections differently in their scoring models and maybe even allow collections to be removed altogether once paid if they were medical.  I don't know if anything ever happened with that, though.

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Absolutely yes. Pay them.

[Anonymous]

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@valley_man0505 wrote:

So, I've been away from the forums for quite some time as I was on a good path with rebuilt collections.  Now, I've lost track over the years as to how some of this works and/or if anything has changed.  I recently had an accident that resulted in a major knee surgery.  I had bills flying in from every direction since you get bills from 4 different places just for the surgery and then follow up appointments and rehab come from yet another couple different places.  Well, now I have 4 collections that popped up and each are only about $50-$70 and this TANKED my scores by almost 100 pts with each bureau.  Will paying them even help my score if they won't delete?  In the past, I remember that just the presence of a collection hurts your score just as much regardless of the amount (i.e. a $0 collection hurt just as much as a $1,000 collection, so there wasn't much incentive to pay unless they agreed to delete from a score standpoint).  I do think I heard that bureaus were at least beginning to consider handling medical collections differently in their scoring models and maybe even allow collections to be removed altogether once paid if they were medical.  I don't know if anything ever happened with that, though.

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Are these your Fico scores or Vantage scores?

Collection accounts under $100 are considered "nuisance" collections for Fico 8 and Fico 9 scores, only, and have no impact on those scores. They will impact your mortgage scores and Vantages scores, though.

Most ideal would be to get pay for deletes on all of them to no longer impact all score models. *Paid* medical collections are also ignored by Fico 9, but again, if they are under $100, each, they are already ignored by Fico 9 scores. Pay for delete is the only way to get them removed if *you* pay them, if you pay them and they do not do PFD and/or you cannot get the original provider to recall the collection in exchange for payment, they remain on your credit reports. If your *insurance* covers the charges, they are required to be removed from your credit reports.