Advice needed on small colletions and credit impact

[cburke]

Greetings,

 

I'm looking for an opinion or two on this. First, just to get it out of the way, I acted irresponsibly with this particular situation and let it go too far - so no denying that.

 

I had a doctor's visit in 2010 while covered under an HMO plan that pays 100% of all such routine visits. In fact I'd seen that same doctor many times that year and each time was covered 100%. However with this one visit, something went wrong with insurance and they declined it. I'm am 99.99% certain this was simply a mistake on their part of some kind. The bill was for $179. I've had this happen several times in the past and the doctor's office will just re-submit after a time and then insurance pays it. I figured this would be the case this time as well, so I did nothing. I continued to get bills (for $179) from the doctor's office for quite some time and just ignored them as typically this would go on for months and eventually the insurance would pay.

 

Fast-forward to mid-late 2012, now it was apparently turned over to a collections agency and I start getting letters/bills from them. I ignored those too (again, no excuses from me on my bone-headed behavior here). I got several letters up through the end of 2012.

 

While doing taxes this year, I finally sat down to do a sort of financial review and in the process started digging deeper into this particular bill. The fact that it was sitting in collections for so long surprised me (I have no legitimate reason to be surprised) so I became concerned about how the situation might impact my credit report. I checked all three credit reporting agencies and it's not in there and my credit is still very good. This leads me to my current situation.

 

My main concern and question is that I don't want it to affect my credit. I'm perfectly willing to pay it (even if it's no longer possible to recover it from my insurance company), but now I'm not so sure that paying it won't actually somehow "trigger" a negative effect. I've had zero contact with this collection agency (beyond them blindly sending me letters) and I'm not sure if initiating contact will do more harm than good?

 

Any opinions/advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

-C

[candicejoy]

What state do you live in? That may have a factor as to why it's not reporting on your credit. It could also be because of the amount owed. Some collection companies don't report smaller collections to the credit bureaus.

[breeze]

Since it isn't reporting yet, contact y0our insurance company and find out what the problem is - if thee was a claim filed in a timely manor, they might be able to go ahead and finish processing it. I have similar things happen when the insurance company wanted more information, and the Dr's office didn't send it.

[cburke]

As for the state, I live in Illinois. As far as I know there are no restrictions preventing them from reporting it here, however it is slightly noteworthy that none of the letters they've sent me even threaten to...

 

I will try to get a hold of the insurance company (I have different insurance now - so may be a bit tricky, but worth a try).

 

Thanks!

 

-C

[Why Chat]

Greetings,

 

I'm looking for an opinion or two on this. First, just to get it out of the way, I acted irresponsibly with this particular situation and let it go too far - so no denying that.

 

I had a doctor's visit in 2010 while covered under an HMO plan that pays 100% of all such routine visits. In fact I'd seen that same doctor many times that year and each time was covered 100%. However with this one visit, something went wrong with insurance and they declined it. I'm am 99.99% certain this was simply a mistake on their part of some kind. The bill was for $179. I've had this happen several times in the past and the doctor's office will just re-submit after a time and then insurance pays it. I figured this would be the case this time as well, so I did nothing. I continued to get bills (for $179) from the doctor's office for quite some time and just ignored them as typically this would go on for months and eventually the insurance would pay.

 

Fast-forward to mid-late 2012, now it was apparently turned over to a collections agency and I start getting letters/bills from them. I ignored those too (again, no excuses from me on my bone-headed behavior here). I got several letters up through the end of 2012.

 

While doing taxes this year, I finally sat down to do a sort of financial review and in the process started digging deeper into this particular bill. The fact that it was sitting in collections for so long surprised me (I have no legitimate reason to be surprised) so I became concerned about how the situation might impact my credit report. I checked all three credit reporting agencies and it's not in there and my credit is still very good. This leads me to my current situation.

 

My main concern and question is that I don't want it to affect my credit. I'm perfectly willing to pay it (even if it's no longer possible to recover it from my insurance company), but now I'm not so sure that paying it won't actually somehow "trigger" a negative effect. I've had zero contact with this collection agency (beyond them blindly sending me letters) and I'm not sure if initiating contact will do more harm than good?

 

Any opinions/advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thanks,

 

-C

Follow these instructions:

 

http://www.whychat.5u.com/GUIDEBOOK.html

 

You do not need to delete old addresses,( unless you have moved) you do not need to send any dispute letter to any CRA ( credit reporting agency) unless the account is being reported.

 

You DO need to send the CA this:

http://whychat.5u.com/ltrcavalhipaa.html

 

This will put you on record with a cease and desist from further collection activities from the CA.

 

IF the CA responds with verifiable data, and it matches your insurance Co. records ( double check with them to make sure the account wasn't in fact PAID) and it was never properly submitted, then IF the CA has responded to your medical DV, you can pay the Dr. with the HIPAA letter insert "a". That way, IF the CA is legitimate ( most are not, they obtained their account information not from the health care provider but from a data miner) you will not wind up with a "paid" collection on your reports, which is WORSE than an unpaid one because it is still derogatory, but more 3 years newer.

Edited April 18, 2013 by Why Chat