Paid Medical bill from CA

[bell77]

I am very new to this forum and to checking my credit score in general.

I am 25 years old and trying to buy a house soon, so I decided to check my score. It is a 654 which is lower than I expected. The reason it is this low, is that I had a $300 medical bill from a hospital, that went unpaid because I was not getting the invoices.

The bill got sent to a collection agency in November 2009. I immediatly paid the $300 to week that I got the invoice. I paid the amount to the CA. I thought that was the end of it, so I didnt fight the hospital or anything about it, not knowing that this would be reported negatively to the credit beaureu. Now I am trying to get the CA record removed off of my credit report so that I can increase my credit score.

Can anyone tell me what my options are, now that this happened almost a year and a half ago? Thanks in advance.

[stone4779]

You could call the CA and respectfully ask that it be deleted, or alternatively, offer to pay them in exchange for a letter of deletion.

[Hal Jordan]

Originally Posted by stone4779

You could call the CA and respectfully ask that it be deleted, or alternatively, offer to pay them in exchange for a letter of deletion.

They already paid the CA...


Chances are very high that the collection agency will not help you. They will more than likely just tell you that they are required by law to report accurately and that it is their policy not to delete accurate information blah blah blah.. Typically the only way you can get them to delete something is when you owe them and let them know you'll pay X number of dollars but only if they'll delete their tradeline (and then you absolutely 100% need to get it in writing).

Use the HIPAA letter in the beginners sections.. It has no teeth whatsoever but almost every person I see who has used it gets the paid collection deleted.

I think you'll have some success with this.

Good luck!

[stone4779]

Originally Posted by Hal Jordan

They already paid the CA...


Chances are very high that the collection agency will not help you. They will more than likely just tell you that they are required by law to report accurately and that it is their policy not to delete accurate information blah blah blah.. Typically the only way you can get them to delete something is when you owe them and let them know you'll pay X number of dollars but only if they'll delete their tradeline (and then you absolutely 100% need to get it in writing).

Use the HIPAA letter in the beginners sections.. It has no teeth whatsoever but almost every person I see who has used it gets the paid collection deleted.

I think you'll have some success with this.

Good luck!

Yeha I know its paid..but considering some will take $30 or $50 or $100 for an old item thats falling off anyways and delete it...cant hurt to see if theyll take $30 or $50 or $100 to just delete it, even though its already paid. They just want money and they have a quota..

Ive never tried the HIPAA....Maybe Ill try that too!

[bell77]

I guess I will look into the HIPAA route. I contacted the hospital, telling them that I hadnt recieved the bills, and they replied with,

"After review of the account, the reason that this account was sent to a collection agency is due to a broken payment arrangement. Bills had in fact been sent prior to your account being sent to a collection agency. Due to the notes on this account that indicate that billing was not an issue, we are unable to remove your account from the collection agency."

Sucks... I may try and contact the CA, but likely wont recieve any help because I already paid the bill over a year ago.

[Hal Jordan]

Send the HIPAA letter. Basically it makes you look like a sue happy nut and it's intended to make them want to just get rid of you instead of planting their feet in the ground and saying bring it! over a bill that has already been paid and the hospital gains nothing out of litegation with you other than paying an attorney to try and fight you.. so the path of lease resistance is to just delete it/recall it and be done with it.

[bell77]

Problem is, I was reading the sticky about the HIPAA letter, and Trish specifically says, "the HIPAA process does not work if you paid the CA." This is exactly what I did, I paid my $300 straight to the CA, anyone know anything about this??

[bell77]

Anyone know of any options?

[Hal Jordan]

To be honest with you.. A Paid CA that is two years old is probably not having as big of an effect on your credit score as you're thinking. How is your credit debt to credit limit ratio? If it's more than 30% that is probably what's dragging your score down more than anything.

The way your credit score is factored:
35% - Your Payment History
30% - Amounts You Owe
15% - Length of Your Credit History
10% - Types of Credit Used
10% - New Credit

Anyway, You don't have a lot of options to get it removed at this point. You can simply ask them. You can write a very heart felt woe is me sob story letter and ask them pretty please to remove it.. Or You can dispute it with the Credit reporting agencies (TU, EQ, EX) and see if you can get it deleted by filing a dispute. You can't pfd because it's already been paid and you can't request DV because you already got it and paid them directly. Those are pretty much your only two options.

Have you tried disputing it with the credit bureaus?

[bell77]

Originally Posted by Hal Jordan

To be honest with you.. A Paid CA that is two years old is probably not having as big of an effect on your credit score as you're thinking. How is your credit debt to credit limit ratio? If it's more than 30% that is probably what's dragging your score down more than anything.

The way your credit score is factored:
35% - Your Payment History
30% - Amounts You Owe
15% - Length of Your Credit History
10% - Types of Credit Used
10% - New Credit

Anyway, You don't have a lot of options to get it removed at this point. You can simply ask them. You can write a very heart felt woe is me sob story letter and ask them pretty please to remove it.. Or You can dispute it with the Credit reporting agencies (TU, EQ, EX) and see if you can get it deleted by filing a dispute. You can't pfd because it's already been paid and you can't request DV because you already got it and paid them directly. Those are pretty much your only two options.

Have you tried disputing it with the credit bureaus?

Thanks for the reply, my credit debt to limit ratio is about 52% right now. I just recently got back a $2500 tax return and paid most of that to my credit cards so that should drop me down to a good bit less than 43%. I am trying to get it down to below 30, theretically giving me about 10 more points in credit bringing two of my credit scores to above 700 (TU and EQ). I tried disputing it twice with experian but they came back verified both times.