I'm not thinking about bankruptcy (yet!) but I think this is the right forum for my question about medical debt. I fully intend to pay all my bills, but I've put off a couple of medical bills totaling less than $500 until I can get a little more cash together. So my question is whether this is a problem in the sense of whether the hospital will actually try to collect the debt or report me to a credit reporting agency and ruin my credit score? How long, if at all can I put this off.
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The Editor, Mark Bernardin, is an attorney living in MA. Please send your suggestions or comments to: TheEditor@malawforum.com
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medical bills debt
Yes, that is a problem. I can't tell you how any particular hospital will deal with unpaid bills, but many of them will turn the debt over to collection agencies who may or may not report the bills to credit reporting agencies as delinquent debt. Once that happens, your credit score can suffer, and that can lead to higher costs for borrowing money or an inability to get loans. A better approach would be to contact the hospital billing department and talk to them about any payment plan options they may have. Keep communicating with the hospital and make whatever payments you agree to make, paying the debt off as quickly as possible. As with any debt negotiation, make sure the hospital is keeping your debt as open and active and not reporting it as delinquent. If you are having trouble managing your debt at this point, you may want to talk to a debt counseling agency. Good luck.