$75 medical bill dispute harming credit?

[John Galt III]

I have a dispute over a medical bill for $75 which has now gone to collections. I got a letter from the collections dept at the medical center, not an actual collections agency. The letter says the bill is past due, and that they are available to "discuss payment arrangements" in order to "avoid further collection actions".

I had been talking to their billing dept earlier, and they were at first acting as though I would not have to pay the $75, then that changed to "the doctor needs to approve it, but don't pay anything at this point", to this letter from the collections dept.

I am wondering if they have reported this as a "late payment" anywhere, which would affect my credit rating. No insurance company involved. No credit card involved.

I read online that medical bills less than $100 were not reported to anything/anyone. If they did report it, who/what would they report it to?

I'm considering just paying the $75, but want to be sure I don't have a black mark on my credit already.

Thanks

 

[easysurfer]

I'd think once a collections agency is involved that either that's already reported on your credit history or will be. You may want to pay before it goes that far.

Did you check your credit report at https://www.annualcreditreport.com?

I got my annual reports recently. The process wasn't too painful.

 

[Texas Proud]

I have not done so, but my mother has...

She has had bills that she did not pay... the insurance company refused to pay for whatever reason... so she did the same...

Our last one was with her regular doc.... she went in for tests and received a bill 6 months later for around $1200... the problem is that the test facility sent it to her old insurance company... I called a number of times and they would not talk to me even though I did not want to talk about any results... finally called when at mom's house... still would not do anything... went to docs office (who I think gave them the old info) and they would not do anything... so I sent a letter to both the doc and testing company that it was their problem and if they wanted to get paid to fix it....

We would continue to get bills... for over 2 years... mom wanted to pay, I said no... finally we got a stmt showing that it was paid... but the total was reduced to less than $100...


Never showed up on her credit report...

And this is only one of a few...

 

[Bamaman]

The whole medical billing system stinks. My best suggestion is to document yourself closely and take care of business when the bills are received--not 6 months or a year later. And don't give up until the balance is zero.

When they turn it over to collections, they're selling the note for 10 cents or 15 cents on the dollar. And chances are it's already been reported to the credit bureau as a charge off--and down goes your FICO score.

If you agree to a payment, get a letter first stating they'd clear your credit bureau report at the time of payment. Only then do you pay'em.

 

[John Galt III]

.....

If you agree to a payment, get a letter first stating they'd clear your credit bureau report at the time of payment. Only then do you pay'em.

Thanks for that suggestion.

Just to clarify for everyone, it's not a collections agency, just a group inside the billing dept that calls itself "collections".

I called the nice girl at billing today, and she said the "collections" letter I got was sent out by mistake, and that they make that mistake now and then. She said my account is not in collections, and it won't ever go into collections, and to ignore the letter and it's warnings.

So my account is still "on hold" while they say they are trying to get someone in another office to "okay" zeroing out the balance.