| Pull your credit regularly. Credit score is a huge scam too. Coming out of college I was in the bottom 5th percentile in the nation from random medical debts and such, and within a year I was in the 95th percentile. I spent a lot of time researching and negotiating on the phone to make that happen, but I paid nearly nothing. There are so many tricks that can be used to improve the score that are completely counter intuitive. For instance, you would think it would be a good thing for your credit to pay a delinquent bill? Almost never. It's acknowledgement that you owed the debt to begin with, so it hurts you. In the case of your doctor's office, the best thing to do is NOT pay the debt collector, and then go a different route through the doctor's office instead. Generally you can scare them with a potential HIPAA violation into getting the item removed from your report. Edit: I should clarify, pulling your credit will only help for things that are outstanding and have already been reported as delinquent. The important thing to know is that if you catch it on there, you can negotiate anything. Even if you have to call back many times until you get the 'right' person, you can social hack the process. |
This is only possible by virtue of having little to no actual credit history. If you're in your 30's with a mortgage, paid off student loans and paid off vehicles, you're not going to make massive positive changes to your report in a year without major negative items falling off.
> For instance, you would think it would be a good thing for your credit to pay a delinquent bill? Almost never. It's acknowledgement that you owed the debt to begin with, so it hurts you.
Are you referring to items at collections? Then yes and no. Collection agencies will usually offer Pay-For-Delete if you ask for it in writing, in which case you pay the item and it's removed from your report altogether. You still end up having to pay the bill. The alternative (if it's a valid delinquency) is to let it sit for 7 years until it falls off.
> In the case of your doctor's office, the best thing to do is NOT pay the debt collector, and then go a different route through the doctor's office instead.
I've never had a medical bill sent to collections, but I did have a (thankfully small) student loan sent while I was diligently paying the other loans because the mail was going to the wrong address. However, I can say from that experience that I could not pay my school at that point. The collector owned the bill. They had paid the school for it, so the school had already gotten its money.
But there's no HIPPA violation in sending a medical bill to collections, and making false accusations like that to get out of paying a legitimate bill (or getting a legitimately delinquent account removed from your credit report) is slimy at best.