Medical collections count ... Yup, medical collections count - just as any other collection (parking tickets, phone bills, newspaper bills, etc). It's the most powerful weapon a CA has to get you to pay. They count on FICO calculations - both for new account inquiries and AR inquiries. Most mortgage and some banks/cu's (and some retail cards) will overlook them, but it's a manual process. -mj
Re: If you will... You have to really stay on top of your insurance coverage. I've had several instances in the past year where the insurance tried not to pay for something and made me fight for my claim. I believe they do this to try to weasel out of paying. The process intimidates people and they give up or don't have the time, don't save records, etc. I've learned a lot but most importantly that I have to be very agressive with claims and stay on top of them. I've also had to pay claims that I was in the process of fighting with the insurance company just to make sure they didn't hit my credit report. I was reimbursed later after pushing the insurance company to the wall. This is ok if the claim is fairly small but the insurance company delaying tactics result in just the situation we have here and if the claim was valid it's their fault, IMO. Notwithstanding that it may be difficult, I think this person should try to recover damages. If not from the hospital then from the insurance company. Some questions first, though: *Who submitted the claim to the insurance co? Was it the hospital? *Had this person at any time previously already informed the insurance company as to whether they had co-insurance? If so, are there any records that they had been so informed? *When the insurance co asked for more info, did the insured provide it within a reasonable amount of time? *Did the hospital bill the insured directly? If so, how was that handled with the hospital? Were they informed that the claim was "in-process" with the insurance co?
Re: If you will... Good points Mist. What I have found is that a lot of the time, it is the billing of the providers that is at fault. If you have a health insurance company that just arbitrarily stalls about paying a claim, there is a law against that. The best thing to do (and the path of least resistance) is to file a complaint with your state's insurance bureau. Insurance companies DO NOT want to be investigated by the state. They will pay claims they really don't owe just to get consumers to withdraw a complaint. Following up on my own claims and my Mom's, and with my little sideline of assisting seniors with their medicare claims, 9 times out of 10 the provider did something that caused the insurance not to pay. They have all these little codes for every procedure, it's very intricate, and often the person billing the insurance company isn't adequately trained. I am dealing with it now with one of my dental claims. But I absolutely agree, stay on top of it!! Never just assume it is all taken care of.
Re: If you will... I am late on replying, but I have had experience with this. My Citi balance was close to $15,000 when a $50 paid collection hit my report. Citi immediately raised my interest to 24.99%. It took me about 9 months to get the paid collection removed. Citi still would not lower my rate. I finally got it lowered when I paid down $7500 of my debt to them, but only to about 10%. They still refuse to give me a BT rate or to even let me do BT's. I also got turned down for the BDD, even after paying down the $7500. I liked the way MBNA did it better. When the paid collection hit my report, they wrote me a letter saying that if I ever used my card again, my rate would go to 24.99%. If I quit uisng it immediately, I could keep my old interest while I paid down the card. Someone eles already said this but it is worth repeating. If at all possible, keep a card with 0 balance so that you can do a balance transfer if someone jacks your rate.
