Medical Collections

[bmd1011]

I have received a statement from a Medical Collections Office, from a surgery I had back in 2004.

I sent a letter to the collections office requesting Verification, they sent me an invoice, and that was it. I have not yet responded to the invoice.

Then I get a bill from them (showing this bill for $1000+ plus the current bill from earlier this year I am working on paying off for $200+), saying I owe them these debts, and that they understand when budgets become tight, and payments will be accepted.

I have no problem finishing off my payments for the $242 debt I owe from earlier this year, but due to the SOL (I'm in MD) isn't a 2004 debt, null and void?

I requested a payment history from the HOspital for the 2004 account, and it shows the last payment was made in November of 2004. I work for a Law Office and in passing conversation I mentioned this to an attorney, and she said not to worry b/c of SOL, and if they try to take me to court we will fight it... but if I can send a letter to get this straightened out somehow beforehand this would be great. Thank you.

[LeslieR]

Well, personally, since this is your debt, I hope you will see your way clear to paying it.

My suggestion would be to contact the physician and find out if their office could pull the account back from collection and accept payments or settle. This will get you a deletion. If you cannot offer a reasonable settlement or pay the balance within a month or two, the physician may not be willing to do so. Then I suggest you ask the CA for a PFD.

Medical debts are typically the easiest to take care of and obtain deletions at the same time.

Just because a debt is out of SOL does not mean it isn't collectible (and reportable if your state's SOL is less than 7.5 years). Besides your obligation to pay for services rendered, you are facing renewed and escalating collection efforts on these debts....and several more years of damaged credit since this 2004 item will continue to report for some time, and affect your score even after it drops off.

If you feel that these charges are due to billing or insurance-related errors, you need to put in the due diligence to figure out what happened and who is responsible for paying the balance. Otherwise, skating out on medical debts contributes to the larger healthcare problem we have in this country. I'm not putting that on your shoulders but I hope you will think about it and pay the debts.

[bmd1011]

Thank you for that advice, I do understand all of that, and I need to research on whether or not I had insurance to cover this at the time.

My main question is how SOL works. I have read around that after 3 years (well 3 yrs in MD anyways) the CA's can not collect any further, as well as can not push a judgement or anything else in court.

I am just trying to understand this. I am not trying to skip out on paying this bill, at the same time I am fully trying to pay off all of my other bills, and would like to fully understand the SOL info to figure out if this debt is valid or not.

Thanks again.

[LeslieR]

SOL doesn't mean that the CA can't collect. There are only two states where collection is time-barred by the SOL...and MD isn't one of them, I'm sorry to say.

The SOL is an affirmative defense that you can use if you are sued over a debt. The SOL having passed does not mean that you will NOT be sued...it means that if you are, you go to court and use it as an affirmative defense.

As I said, this debt will report for 7 years after the DOFD and it may be sold and resold for some time to come even after that (subjecting you to calls and letters and possible illegal reaging and reporting of the debt if a real scumbag JDB gets ahold of it).