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Hi, I have been on the boards for the last couple of months working through the Hipaa process under a different thread (see below). http://creditboards.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=511282&hl=%2Bcfc+%2Btexas_boy&do=findComment&comment=4856962 I'm looking at this from all angles while waiting for the initial dispute process to unfold. Question.... does the 7 year clock start at the time of service for medical? When you pay and old medical bill does it renew the 7 year clock or does the clock still remain at the start point of the "time of service"? Does anyone have a link to the FTC explaining this? I Tell ya.... I have been able to clean up both EQ and TU with the big help of this forum yet EX is a stubborn old goat that I intend to log complaints on and take legal action as they don't play by the FCTRA and FTC rules. They appear to march to their own drum.... Texan

I need help in dealing with Central Financial Control. I was hospitalized in 2008. I was fully insured at the time and I never received a bill from the hospital after discharge. I am currently trying to get pre-approved for a mortgage and today the loan officer informed me of a collection account on my credit report. It's listed under Central Financial Control for $350. It was reported in 2009. A couple of years ago I received a phone call from CFC and I asked them to send me verification of the debt since I had never received a bill. I verified all my contact info with them, but I never received the info I requested and I forgot about it. I'm honestly not sure if this debt is valid or not since I never received a bill from the hospital. I have contacted the hospital and they directed me to CFC. I need to get this off my credit reports quickly so that I can get pre-approved for this mortgage. I know that CFC is awful to work with, from what I have read. Any suggestion on how to handle this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Hey everyone, I have been on CB in the credit section for a few months trying to fix my credit and help my bofriend with his too. He just recieved a dunning letter from a local CA for an outsanding medical bill for $500. This is not yet reporting on his CR. I am trying to gather information but want to make sure that I am on the right track... From what I am reading it seems that I need to respond with WhyChat's DV right away: http://www.whychat.5u.com/ltrcavalhipaa.html I copied it word for word (based on advice on here) and inserted the neccessary minimal changes. Do I need to use the special font/paper to avoid the electronic scanning or is that only for CRAs? Also, they got his work number (We already opted out and disputed old addresses months ago, with some not being removed). They have been calling him at work and I told him to not talk to them but he would like to have them stop - should I include cease and desist language specific to contacting at work in addition to the language that is already included? Thanks for all your help!

I'm beginning my journey to clean up my credit and after extensive research here I have a couple of options on how to remove 3 unpaid medical collections. I can DV the CA, go the HIPPA route through the CRA, or send the obsolete letter. They will fall off May 2014. I realize it may be a little too far out so maybe go the other route? Any suggestions? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

A collection agency is reporting an ambulance debt as a government debt. The fire department ambulance service transported me to the hospital. They billed my insurance which the insurance covered minus a $100 co-pay. This was in December 2010. I honestly can't remember if I ever received a bill from them. Anyway, at some point they apparently turned the bill for $100 over to a collection agency. Rather than list the debt on my credit report as medical, they listed it as government. Are they allowed to do so? From my understanding, there are more protections for medical debts and it helps get them removed once paid, so how can I get that listed as medical? Secondly, I contacted the fire department who directed me to the ambulance billing service. I had them send me a billing statement which they did. They listed the separate charges, the payment from my insurance company and the remaining $100 as a "write off". They made no mention of a collection agency on the letter. I sent a dispute and validate letter to the collection agency via cmrrr. They received and signed it. I received the green card a couple of days ago. They are only reporting under TransUnion for now. What should I do next, if anything? Thank you in advance for any assistance given.

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

First of all I'd like to thank Why Chat and the HIPAA process for helping me to get several medical collections deleted. There is a newer collection account that I received a letter for from Grant & Weber for the copay from a hospital stay. The account is not yet showing on my credit reports. I am willing to pay if they can prove they are allowed to collect, however I cannot at this time pay in full. Ideally, I would like to set up a payment plan w/ the OC and keep this off my reports. If necessary I will set up a payment plan w/ the CA. This is from early last year, so well within the SOL. Should I proceed w/ the medical account DV? Thanks for all your help.

I have a three year old medical debt in collections. I'm due in court this thursday due to agreeing to pay however not paying the payments I agreed to. I have the money to pay the original debt however with the collectors fees the amount is double which I don't have. On my credit report the judgement lists the original amount. I'm unsure of what to do at this point. Do I pay the OC and tell the courts?

Hello! I have been reading on here for a few months and have started to make some progress on my credit report. One item I wasn’t sure about so I sent a DV letter and it came back that it was an unpaid medical debt from 9/2011. I checked my healthcare account and it showed as paid in full. I used the number on the bill that the CA sent me for validation and called the OC to discuss what I thought was a paid bill. Long story short, the OC stated they didn’t have my insurance info so they couldn’t bill for the doctor services (even though they billed for the facilities). My insurance company agreed to pay the old bill and it has been ‘processed’ by my insurance company as of 3/5/13. My question is where do I go from here? Do I send the “FORM LETTER TO ORIGINAL HEALTH CARE PROVIDER”? Do I contact the CRA first? Please help! Thanks in advance!!