[consz]

I’ll repost my comment from a recent thread, but this article is a surprise to me, I thought this had already been the case for years?

Reposted comment —

As far as I can tell, this is the correct way to handle this? I haven’t paid attention to any medical bills sent in the mail since I started working 15 years ago (I generally pay what they ask at the point of service), and I’ve never noticed any consequences (no denial of service anywhere, has never shown up in any way on my credit report, etc) — as far as my experience has shown, any bills sent after the fact are completely optional to pay.

[joe5150]

If the hospital/provider sends your bill to a collections agency, then it can definitely show up on your reports. Especially so if you are actually sued for the debt, in which case the judgement is also a public record.

I've had this happen a couple times in the past when I was in treatment for cancer and underemployed. One agency reported the collections action and it went on my credit report (no indication that it's medical debt or anything else, so I imagine it would be up to the consumer to contest these things with the bureau?) Another collector didn't, so I never paid the bill or heard from them again!

[consz]

>If the hospital/provider sends your bill to a collections agency, then it can definitely show up on your reports.

So I agree this was the impression I got in theory, but in practice I’ve never seen this happen. Why is there this mismatch? I check my credit reports once a year, there’s nothing showing up

[joe5150]

It's entirely up to the hospital and the collectors they use (if they use any at all) how aggressively they pursue unpaid bills and whether they will involve your credit report to encourage people to pay. If you've mostly been going to the same places (or as another comment said, live somewhere where it's not as easy to send medical bills to collections), I can see it not really being a problem for you.

[eek2121]

I have, sometimes bills go to collections without me even receiving a bill from the doctor/hospital themselves.

[idiotsecant]

Wow you've lived a charmed life, friend. This is not the experience of the vast majority of people. Medical debt is real, and crushing.

[knodi]

Yes, crushing indeed. Number one cause of bankruptcies in the US is medical expenses.

[ch4s3]

That's not really true, or at least it would be hard to say for sure. Every source saying that cites the same survey where a majority of respondents claimed that it was at least a contributing factor. Its actually really hard to get good breakdowns of the numbers on this.

[brewdad]

It's sort of a straw that breaks the camel's back situation in most cases I would wager. It's less that medical debt caused bankruptcy than it, added on top of housing debt and car loans and credit cards and student loans etc., finally pushed a household to a point where getting out from under it all was too much.

[ch4s3]

Yeah, I don’t exactly disagree. Many years ago I worked at a debt counseling company and had occasion to look at the records and listen in on phone calls. It was really quite fascinating and heartbreaking. There definitely seemed to be a few common patterns. Big debts around car crashes and complicated births were not uncommon. But on the other hand almost everyone had a crazy mortgage and a pile of credit card debt too.

[rqtwteye]

My ex had collectors calling her several times a day for months while she was disputing a bill. It probably depends on whether the hospital writes the bill off or sells it to collectors.

[wizerdrobe]

I feel for your ex, I have three (3) in office visits covered by my insurance that are overdue as of August. I’ve had to go back and forth on the phone in a Kafka-hell to get my insurance to cover a covered visit because of some opaque clerical error (and I write medical insurance review software and I’m still confused as to who is to blame…). Insurance issued a payment last month finally, but the doctor has yet to recognize it so I still get reminders on being “late” for a bill I don’t ultimately owe.

I cannot imagine how infuriated I would be if I were being punished on my credit for someone else’s clerical error.

[rqtwteye]

"I’ve had to go back and forth on the phone in a Kafka-hell to get my insurance to cover a covered visit because of some opaque clerical error"

the same happened to my ex. Something had gone wrong between hospital and insurance and both refused to fix it. Which left her in between trying to figure this out while trying to recover. It's really infuriating that they can treat people that way. Once you experience this together with billing for things that never happened and insurance refusing things they have to cover, you can only conclude that insurances and hospitals are basically fraudsters that for some reason are allowed to get away with it.

[consz]

But I guess that’s my whole point is once they sell it to collectors it’s equivalent to the bill not existing? My confusion is around wondering if I’ve somehow fallen through the cracks and got lucky or other people have the same experience.

Why do other people pay bills they receive in the mail?

[joe5150]

That's not always the case. Some hospitals will still keep a record of the unpaid bill on your account even after they pass the debt to a collector, and the collector will report whether you pay to the hospital.

The practice and billing parts of the system are usually mostly separate, so the person checking you in for your appointments may not know or have any way to see that you have unpaid bills and you won't necessarily be denied care for it, but there's no real standard here either.

[datavirtue]

I doubt the collection agencies would even purchase these at this point.

[rincebrain]

I stopped getting any care at a large hospital near me's outpatient office because they had a bad habit of just sending bills to collections before my insurance responded to them, and then not updating anything once they did, so I'd get a debt collector notice and call the hospital, and they'd say "oh you paid that in full, you shouldn't be getting a notice" "well you should probably tell that to the debt collector".

Over and over again.

So if those started showing up on my credit report eventually, it'd be a significant impact, even though I was not involved in any failure to pay. Fortunately, they never did, but for many people, that's not true.

[gwbas1c]

I assume you're in the US.

What you're probably seeing are the bills that your service provider sends to insurance, and then your insurance sending you a statement of benefits.

If these were real bills, they would keep sending them.

(Sometimes these can be amusing: I had surgery in 2011, and the hospital billed the insurance company $100,000. The insurance company responded that the agreed cost for services should be $20,000. The hospital ended up getting $20,000. IMO, $20,000 was plenty to pay everyone involved.)

[dheera]

Had a echocardiogram that I was told would be covered but insurance didn't pay, and they balance billed me for $5K. I never paid. Got handed to debt collectors. Wrote to them saying it isn't my debt and to cease contacting me.

If they take it to court I'll lawyer up and fight.

In any case, I gave neither debt collectors nor medical office my residential address or mobile number. I suggest you NEVER give your residential address to medical offices either, or they'll happily tell debt collectors where you sleep. Which personally I think should be a HEPA violation but apparently it isn't.

Give them a virtual mailbox or office address where you can receive mail.

[bdcravens]

It does go on your credit REPORT. However, the impact it has on your credit SCORE is what varies, especially with newer models.

[vondur]

I have someone in Las Vegas who stole my identity and is using it for medical services. I get collection notices for these services sent to my house (I'm not near Las Vegas) and I have to dispute every one of them. I've had to file police reports on it, but the Police in Vegas don't really care about helping me.

[xwdv]

They are letting the interest build to such a magnitude that they can eventually sue your estate and easily recover the losses and more if you have assets at the time of death.

[singleshot_]

It would be surprising if this worked, given that a creditor who did not mitigate his damages reasonably and instead lurked, awaiting a windfall is not entitled to damages.

[dcow]

Do you live in California? I know CA has much more consumer-friendly restrictions on sending medical bills to collections. It essentially can’t happen in CA.