I recently became interested in my credit report and decided to pull it from Experian. I was surprised to note that I have two outstanding debts from August 2004 totaling $310. The debt currently rests with a collection agency and it appears it is the result of some medical bills. I find it quite hard to believe that bills were not paid at the time; I was in college and all bills were being forwarded to my father at the time. In addition, it seems out of the ordinary that he would not respond to any warning letters from a collection agency. So my questions is how do I proceed from here? I can afford to pay off this amount, but is there a better way? I am not very familiar with the process and am seeking some guidance where to start.
It's very possible that you don't even owe that money on your credit reports and it would be unwise to make payment. Were you covered under your parent's insurance while you were in college? Did you go to an in-network provider? If you did go to a network provider, get the EOB from the insurance for the dates of service and determine if the provider was paid in full, according to their contract. At this point in time, don't make any payment to anyone - you'll just end up with a 7-year notation of a "paid" collection account.
Even though all medical providers might have had your father's address as the one to bill to, they might have still sent the bill to one of your old addresses, past the time when mail would be forwarded, due to the time it can take for a claim to be sent, rejected, sat on, etc. Check the insurance EOBs, and call the insurance company, to see if a claim was even submitted, and what co-pay, if any, was due. You will also have to check with your father, since he may actually have paid. Also keep in mind that if it is an in-network provider, they may be required by contract to submit claims within a specified time period. The insurance contract may designate what amounts are collectable from the patient. It is not uncommon for medical billing to get messed up, either with claims not being sent to insurance, claims being sent to the wrong insurance, errors in the claims, errors in crediting payments to the correct physician account, etc. The knee-jerk response is often to "send it to collection", even when the billing department messed it up.
