Medical bill sent to Collections without notice

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csanchez70

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My wife just a received a notice from a collections agency about a medical bill from two years ago. She paid her copays at the times of her visits and never received any other bills. Now a collections company sent us a bill for $647.32, it said we had 30 days to dispute but we looked on her credit report and it's already showing up on one of the three reports.

We can and will pay the bill but we are trying to buy a house in the next couple of months and want to preserve her great credit. We would just like to know what the best course of action would be, had we ever received a notice from the medical office the bill would have been paid.

It just doesn't seem right for her credit to get smashed because of a bill we never received and the collection company didn't give us time to pay them before reporting it to the credit bureaus.

Any help would be appreciated, Thank You.
 
You're not going to like what I have to say. The system is terrible. Here is what I would do.

1) Dispute the debt immediately in writing and also dispute the validity of the debt with your credit reporting agency.

2) Contact the doctor's office to find out what happened.

3) See whether I could work something out where the original creditor can agree upon a mistake being made (e.g. they may have sent the bill to the wrong address) and you can have your credit report cleared.

The problem with just paying off the amount is that it may appear on your credit report as a negative item. I've found that with some agencies they are willing to work with you as you are far from the first. All they want to do is get paid. However, do NOT believe the lies that many of these representatives will tell you in order to collect the money.

Good luck - you can make this work but you'll need to be persistent.
 
I also wouldn't worry too much about the home loan if that's the only ding on your credit. It shouldn't bring your credit down that much, and usually the loan officer or motgage broker will sit down with you and go over any problems on your report, or you can contact them ahead of time. Just explain the situation, that you thought this was taken care of and they hit you out of the blue.

I had a similar situation a few years ago. I had been injured at work, and the supervisor didn't fill out the paperwork correctly. With the way he filled it out, the workers comp insurance dened the claim. But I never was notified of anything wrong, and never even heard from a collections agency. And I was still at the same address, so no problem with the mail. The only way I found out there was a problem was almost 3 years after the fact when I was applying for a mortgage.
 
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