I want to apologize in advance. I am sure the information that I am asking is somewhere on this site.

I did read through the newbie section but admit that the abundant use of acronyms has me throughly confused.

A few questions:

I have seen refrence several times in regards to "opting out". What does this mean? What are the financial repercussions of doing or not doing this?

I have also read about somthing in regards to HIPPA and medical bills and derogatory reporting. Could someone please explain this in laymans terms without the use of acronyms.

Also, forgive me if this is not the right forum for this, but we are considering opening a second checking account from which to do bill pay from. Unfortunatly we have a tendency not to realize that all of the monthly bills have not yet been withdrawn from our account and overdraft. We figure that by seporating the bill money from spending money will eliminate this problem. Does anyone have any feedback regarding the merits or problems with this new system. We figure paying $6 a month in maintnence fees is cheaper than $300 in overdraft fees a couple of times a year. Yes I realize if we balanced after every transaction this would not happen, however I know us well enough to know we will not be that vigilant.

opt out is here.


http://creditboards.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=78374


credit glossary here.

http://creditboards.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=32

Also, what is the best site to recieve and keep track of my fico score and/or credit reports.

I last pulled my three reports on 1/1/07 with the free credit reports. I have no idea what my fico score is, but need to start keeping track and making sure our credit is in good shape for when we are ready to move in about 2 years.

Most if not all of our CA experience is due to medical bills. Typically, I ignore the CA and work directly with the care provider. Is this wise? What is the best way to handle them. We are typically in a slow pay situation, not a no pay.

We are working on getting in better control of our finances and building up a savings to avoid issues in the future.

actually since we have such a large number of forums to visit, may I suggest your credit or credit reporting related question be directed to the main credit forum. It can be reached by the following link.


http://creditboards.com/forums/index.php?showforum=29

If you post properly in the correct forums, you will undoubtedly receive more responses.