ok heres my story: i'm 21 and i was riding my bmx bike in boston and destroyed my ankle/broke my leg in one fall. i live in new york city but i went to the public hospital in boston. they took x-rays and put me in a cast etc. at the time i had just recieved insurance through the city of new york ( i had no reportable income at the time and still technically don't so there is a prorgram that allows you to recieve insurance through the city, my insurance is called MetroPlus and it covers emergency visits anywhere in the US ). here's where i messed up: when they asked how i wanted to pay for the x rays etc one of the options was "free health care" and so i applied for that option because at the time i had been out of new york traveling for over 4 months and hadn't yet recieved my insurance card and didnt even know that i was allready approved and everything. of course a few days later i recieved a letter saying that i was not applicable for the free health care since i am a resident of new hampshire ( where i grew up ) and not mass. ( i probably would have realized that if i wasn't in the worst pain of my life ) so i got my dad to drive me to new york where i recieved the rest of my care regarding that injury for the next couple months and all that went fine. so then i finally go back to new hampshire ( where all the bills were accumulating ) about a month and a half later... i packaged them up and sent them to MetroPlus ( they instructed me to do this over the phone ) and then foolishly went about assuming that my worries were done regarding that. 2 months later i realized that the debt had been passed on to various credit agencies and i was still recieving bills. so here i am and i'm basically just wondering the following: 1) has my credit score been marked down by this point? i was recently approved for a loan for a house and was told it is currently 726 so if it was affected it was not affected too severely 2) if my credit score has been marked down what further actions can these collectors take against me? i don't live at the address where these bills are being sent and my parents who do live there are moving out within a year 3) is there any feasible way taht my insurance providor would be obligated to pay for these bills even though they are no longer being issued by the original hospital and the original bills i sent in were apparently ignored ( they were not sent certified mail so i cannot prove this ) so basically i just want to know what they can do to me, what they have allready done to me and what my future plans should be regarding it. the bills were first issued about 6 months ago and total a little less than 3000 dollars, thank you.
I would not give up at this time in getting payment by the insurance company directly to the medical provider. Insurance payments get screwed up all the time, and they get fixed all the time. This medical provider may be under contract with the insurance company, or they may not, but still accept discounted payments as if they were. They can likely still recall the accounts from the CAs if paid by insurance, whatever they say. If they do, you are also in a better position to get the accounts removed from your CRs by the CAs. Your worst outcome will be to pay the CAs directly at the inflate non-insured rates, have no payments made by insurance coverage you in fact had, and still have the negative tradelines from the paid collections. This, of course, is what the CAs and even the medical providers, will try to get you to do. Rotten deal. Get another set of copies of all bills from the hospital. Never send originals to anyone, always send copies, keep originals, and keep a copy of literally what you have sent to anyone. Basic CYA.
