When I made my original Facebook post, everyone offered me “advice.”
The most common of which seemed to be “Don’t pay the bill.” Accompanying this
were many reasons of why this should be my go-to plan. This post will look at two common misconceptions concerning medical debt.
#1-Medical debt won’t affect your credit score
Wrong. While doctors and hospitals don't generally report unpaid bills to credit bureaus, the collection agencies they send those unpaid bills to will. And they can stay on your report for seven years. Luckily, newer versions of the FICO score give less weight to medical debts. Unfortunately, most lenders still use older FICO versions that don't make that distinction. Experian does allow a six month grace period before medical collections show up on your credit report, giving you time to work out any billing or insurance hassles or to arrange a payment plan.
#2-As long as you're paying something, they can't take you to collections
Several people told me to just pay $20 a month and that as long as I was making this effort to pay, the hospital couldn't do anything. False. The hospital has to agree to the payment plan and the payments have to be large enough when compared to the whole of your bill. Additionally, other comments said that they had their wages garnished for unpaid medical debt. Granted, for medical debt they have to sue you for this to happen, but it does indeed happen.
