I'm 23 years old and anal about paying my bills on time or early. I have a 741 credit score. I have never missed any kind of payment in my life. I have plenty of car and credit card credit. I have never had a house financed, yet. Now lies the problem... About two years ago I had to have an Upper GI and I had insurance, which it was supposed to be billed to. Recently a collections agency contacted me out of the blue to tell me that I had been turned in for this bill which is $5,000. I was on my mom's insurance and for whatever reason it wasn't covered when it should have been. Now they are telling me to pay them $5,000 which A) I shouldn't owe and B) I don't think I should pay. My only problem is how this will affect my score. I'm recently married and soon to be buying a house and I don't want this to get in the way. Any help or advice would be appreciated. Thanks.
Contact the insurance company, and see if a claim was properly submitted, and if it was paid. If not, the insurance company and medical provider need to work out how they will handle this claim. In particular, if the medical provider was "in-network", they were probably required under contract with the insurance company to submit claims properly and timely. The insurance company might now pay the claim, subject to any agreed contract adjustments, in which case the provider's error is the basis for you getting any collection account removed, or if the insurer asserts their rights under the contract to deny the claim if it wasn't timely submitted, the provider might just be stuck, since if they were in-network they might not be able to collect any amount from you on a claim they failed to submit timely. Make the other parties meet their legal and contractual obligations. Once they do, you have the legal leverage to force the CA to stop their erroneous collection and remove their erroneous reporting.
