Question for my roommate:

In 2002, my roomie was in a car accident that resulted in severe head trauma. She saw a neurologist totally around $130,000 in medical bills over about 6 months (tests, office visits, medication etc).

She received a settlement in December 2005, which paid her medical bills first, then her lawyer and then her. She was away at college so her parents and lawyer took care of everything for her. They told her all was well.

Well, it turns out this wasn't all well. Between 2002-2005 some of the bills got sent to collections. Those were not paid by the settlement. She did not know this until a few months ago when the calls started. She called her lawyer who told her those bills were not sent to him which is why he didn't pay them out of the settlement. Nothing more he can do. She has to pay them.

Due to some unscrupulous parents, her part of the settlement got spent without her seeing a dime (I know, she should sue her parents...but she wont).

Her question is (and I tried to find the answer but couldn't)...is there an SOL in Washington state for medical bills and if so, what is it? Can they sue her? She is willing to pay them off, but cannot afford it right now (all told about 15,000 is left in collections). Any help would be great! Thanks.

The SOL in all States ( except 3 Year SOL States) for medical collections is 4 years.

Washington is a 3 year SOL State
http://whychat.5u.com/States/state-wa.html

The starting date is the DATE OF SERVICE

She should opt out on her credit reports-make one phone call to 1-888-567-8688 [1-888-5-OPTOUT] to opt-out , this will prevent further problems from "garbage" CA/JDB poisoning of her reports.

She should get all her old addresses deleted if possible, especially where she was living at her parent's home.

Then she should send this to each CRA ( from a snail mail individual report)
http://whychat.5u.com/hipaadisp.html

At the same time, if she is getting MAIL from any CA, she should send them this;
http://whychat.5u.com/ltrcavalhipaa.html

Any accounts remaining on her reports that were not deleted with the dispute letter to the CRA should then get this;
http://whychat.5u.com/ltrcavalhipaa.html#DISPUTE

If she is being contacted by phone only, and has not received any mail from the CA, she should request the name and address of the calling CA and advise them that the call is being recorded.

It is very doubtful that there are any legitimate bills left over, what is most likely is that the garbage CA's have picked up the discounted left over or "fake" bills.

For further assistance, after all the above steps have been followed, you can post back in this forum ON THIS THREAD.