Poll of the Day > ATTN People with medical debt

(+) Yeah! (+)

Give this a try.

https://twitter.com/DareBear1226/status/1350511629977452547

---

While my insurance payed for most of the $200,000 bill after I was in the hospital for emergency lung surgery a few years ago, I still owed several thousand for the deductible. I filed for financial assistance and they knocked 90% off so I only had to pay a few hundred.

---

captpackrat posted...

While my insurance payed for most of the $200,000 bill after I was in the hospital for emergency lung surgery a few years ago, I still owed several thousand for the deductible. I filed for financial assistance and they knocked 90% off so I only had to pay a few hundred.

Right now? You're welcome

jk I know. I posted it on Facebook, doubt it'll get any attention because Facebook fucking sucks as a way to communicate with people in a serious way, but I know so many people with medical debt that may not know this so I'll have to talk to them irl.

---

Yellow posted...

Right now? You're welcome

This was a few years ago. I qualified because I was married at the time, which bumps up the income limits. If you have kids the limits can actually get pretty high.

---

wonder if that was true in 2008, would've made building credit in my early 20s a lot easier.

---

When my son had to get his surgery there was like 20 grand left after insurance so I just asked them to lower the bill and they reduced it to like 120 bucks

---

I did this in my early 20s when I was having health problems and didnt have insurance. Charity care took away most of my debt. But once they go to collections, charity care doesnt take care of it. The ones that went to collections impact my credit to this day

SamuelLJackdson posted...

I did this in my early 20s when I was having health problems and didnt have insurance. Charity care took away most of my debt. But once they go to collections, charity care doesnt take care of it. The ones that went to collections impact my credit to this day

Those should only stay on your credit for 7 years. Unless you keep paying on them. Don't pay, deny the debt and eventually it goes away. I suppose it may depend on how much. But I ignored a hospital/ambulance bill of a few grand and just told the collectors that I had no knowledge of thay debt whenever they called. It went through a few different companies but eventually people stopped calling and a few years later it dropped off my credit report.

I imagine if it's bug enough they'll take more drastic measures like having the courts garnish your wages and that would keep it from dropping since that would count as making payments...

---

Bugmeat posted...

Those should only stay on your credit for 7 years. Unless you keep paying on them. Don't pay, deny the debt and eventually it goes away. I suppose it may depend on how much. But I ignored a hospital/ambulance bill of a few grand and just told the collectors that I had no knowledge of thay debt whenever they called. It went through a few different companies but eventually people stopped calling and a few years later it dropped off my credit report.

I imagine if it's bug enough they'll take more drastic measures like having the courts garnish your wages and that would keep it from dropping since that would count as making payments...

Is that so? I have 2 collections that appear as derogatory marks in my credit report from 2016 for unpaid hospital bills. I havent paid a dollar towards either.. they should both disappear from my credit report in 2023?

ive always debated if Im better off just paying them off to boost my credit score or not

And I was in the same boat. I actually needed better credit and was considering trying to pay them off to remove them. Some googling lead me to the info I provided. They said 7 years and it will go away so long as you don't acknowledge the debt. I had about 2.5 years left so I said "screw it" and followed that advice. The marks vanished from my report on schedule.


---

yeah, my debt eventually went away, i never paid a dime, but it fucked my credit for years.

---