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I had to visit the emergency room earlier this year for a nose bleed. At the time I was discharged (October 2022) I paid a 200$ bill to the hospital, foolishly believing that this was the entire cost of the visit. I subsequently received a 357$ physicians statement. This little episode in medical billing really irritated me since I felt that the hospital had hidden the actual cost of their services and because the amount was absurd for the services rendered (10 minutes for a physicians assistant to apply some topical TCX). As a result I have been thinking of not paying it and am trying to understand if recent changes to that the credit reporting agencies have made may allow me to get away with this without damaging my >800 credit score.
In particular it sounds like medical debts < 500$ will no longer impact a credit score starting in 2023 https://www.equifax.com/personal/education/credit/score/can-medical-debt-impact-credit-scores/ and I am trying to determine if this determination is made based on the date of the service(s) (october 2022) or the date that a bill is sold to a collections entity, which could occur in late January. I also discovered that paid medical debt collections haven't impacted a consumers credit score since 2022 (https://investor.equifax.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1222/equifax-experian-and-transunion-support-u-s-consumers), so its my understanding that even if they are able to sell this bill to a collections entity, the worst that could happen is that I would simply have to pay the amount at a later time.
Does anyone know if this analysis is basically correct? Its my understanding that their only other recourse would be to try and sue me which is unlikely to happen over a 357$ bill.
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I truly don’t understand the moralizing, there is no universe where having an in network hospital with an out of network doctor is anything other than an attempt to obfuscate in an attempt to extract a higher price. Also I am surprised that you believe that complaining to congress about exorbitant healthcare costs is anything but a waste of time, the last 30 years of history would seem to contradict you on this.
Upon reflection it’s stunning that americas credit reporting agencies apparently consider healthcare to be so predatory that they don’t think medical debt is predictive of someone’s willingness to repay other kinds of consumer debt.
It doesn’t sound like anybody is trying to raise prices for you. It sounds like there’s inscrutable bureaucratic reasons for the bill getting passed on to you and not the insurer.
Yes, this is frustrating, but if you couldn’t pay a $350 bill you should have picked a different plan.
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