Hospital says payment plans don’t work since it’s gone to collections…
You have to ask for proof of ownership from the debt collectors. Sometimes all they have is your info in a spreadsheet, which is not enough to legally collect. Do some online searches and you should be able to finda lot of resources.
100% this.
Don’t just ignore it because they can sue and if you ignore that then you’ll get a default judgment against you which you actually will have to pay even if the original claim was complete bullshit.
On the other hand, if you demand they provide actual proof of the debt they will usually not have it and will just go away.
A default judgement just reitterates the debt. If they don’t garnish your wages or seize your tax return or put a lein on your property, none of which they can do for most categories of debt, there is no reason to treat a judgement as anything more substantial than another harrassing letter/phone call. I’m not sure it even hits your credit report as new activity.
99% of creditors won’t bother to sue in any court that has jurisdiction over the debtor. They “sue” in “courts” that rubber-stamp all “debts”(for multiple debtors at a time) to no meaningful end, other than they can now say they took you to court and you lost, so now you should totally give them money or they’ll … “sue” again.
ask for proof of ownership from the debt collectors.
I agree with this. If it turns out you really do owe the money and you have a little money offer to settle if they’ll give you something saying the amount settles the debt in full. If they don’t have proof you owe the money, I would ignore them.
The hospital is now out of the loop and no longer has any power in this situation.
“gone to collections” means an external company has paid the hospital for the debt. (The hospital likely make cents on the dollar.)
Couple things here:
- as of now, medical debt doesn’t hit your personal credit like other debt does, which leads me to…
- the debt collectors may try to get you to finance the debt, which absolutely WILL impact your credit if you default. Never finance medical debt, it can only hurt you.
This is of course in addition to the other comment that says you need to ask for proof of ownership from the collectors.
I had a about a $100k medical bill that was covered except for a $5k deductible years ago, which I couldn’t pay. It eventually went away.
What did you do to make it go away? How do they get it to impact my credit?
Thanks!
Sorry, just getting around to replying to this. For me, it just went away after 7 years. I made a big purchase during that time and still got the interest rate for top tier credit.
Depending on the state, debts with no new activity falls off your Credit History after 7 years(5 in my state). Agreeing to pay, or making a payment, counts as new activity. Don’t pay on shit that you cannot afford to pay off in full over whatever time-frame. Don’t agree to payment plans that don’t reduce the debt witt each payment.
Even if they agree to a lower total amount, it goes on your credit report as being written-off, which often has a worse effect on your score than ignoring the debt.
If one changes medical debt to non-medical debt, it will impact your credit.
Do not put it on a credit card (less you can pay it off immediately).
I do not know if a creditor based payment plan keeps it as medical debt or not.
Ignore it. It goes away eventually. Don’t answer calls from collectors.
Literally ignore it.
