Daniel Rosen breaks down three major changes to medical debt reporting: paid collections now get removed, reporting delays extend to one year, and debts under $500 are excluded. He covers dispute strategies, validation letters, and negotiation tactics to remove medical collections from your credit report.
Hey, credit heroes, let's talk about medical debt. It is brutal, it's stressful, and it can completely wreck your credit. But here's the good news. The rules around medical debt reporting have changed. And today I'm going to share what you need to know to remove medical collections from your credit report. So you better stick around. My name is Daniel Rosen and welcome to Credit Repair Business secrets. In the 20 years since releasing my first credit repair software, I have helped thousands of businesses scale from the ground up. And I've experienced many of the same challenges that credit heroes face. And I've learned proven ways to overcome them and succeed. And there's one really big problem that a ton of people face. Medical Debt. Medical debt has been a massive problem for years, and it's one of the top reasons for financial hardship in America. It's a huge problem that wrecks credit scores, messes up finances, and makes it harder for millions of people to get back on track. This exact same thing happened to my friend. He had to go to the hospital a few years ago and he assumed that everything was covered by his insurance. And then many months later, he was horrified to find out that none of it was covered by his insurance. And he had a $30,000 bill that was already past due and he didn't learn about it until he was contacted by collections. Crazy, right? Here's a thing to remember. There have been some really positive changes and steps made towards making sure that people aren't crushed by medical bills. Here are the top three changes that you need to know about. Paid Medical debts are gone as of July 1, 2022. Paid medical collection debts are are no longer included on credit reports. In the past, even if you paid off a medical bill that was in collections, it could still stick around on your report for seven years, but not anymore. Number two More Time to Pay before Reporting the time before unpaid medical debts can appear on your credit report has been extended. You now have one full year instead of six months to pay off medical bills before they get reported. Small debts are excluded. Starting as of April 11, 2023, medical collection debts under $500 are no longer reported at all. This has already led to about 70% of medical collection debts being removed from consumer credit reports. And more changes are coming. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is pushing for even bigger changes that could eliminate medical debt from credit decisions altogether. If these changes are implemented, medical debt wouldn't impact credit decisions at all. And that would be awesome. Here's why this is important. Even with recent changes to medical debt reporting, Things aren't perfect. Larger unpaid medical debts, those over $500, can still show up on credit reports and hurt your score. Plus, mistakes happen, and debts that should have been removed might still be reported. That's why it's so important to know how to take action to protect your credit. Here is what you need to know. If you still have a medical collection on your credit report, there are ways to remove them. Medical providers and debt collectors who must follow strict rules when handling medical debts. And these rules, they give you the power to fight back if your rights are violated. When medical debts are sent to collections, the information that can be shared is very, very limited. Debt collectors can only receive your name, address, Social Security number, date of birth, payment history, and the name and location of the medical facility. And that's it. They cannot share or disclose details about your treatment, information about diagnosis or medications, or any paperwork revealing your medical history. If a debt collector violates these rules, they are in breach of hipaa, which is the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. And this gives you powerful leverage to remove medical collections from credit reports. So how do you use HIPAA to delete medical collections? It's easy. First, you dispute the debt. You should always grab the low hanging fruit by disputing the collection with the credit bureaus. First. If the debt qualifies under the new rules, it might get deleted right away. Next, demand validation. If the debt sticks, send a validation letter to the collection agency and this forces them to prove that the debt is valid. You can use the validation letters in your credit repair cloud library and then wait for the response. Then leverage the HIPAA violations. HIPAA laws are your secret weapon. Collection agencies can only have very basic info about your debt, like your name, payment history and where you were treated. And if they share details about your treatment or your diagnosis, they are breaking the law. So use the validation of medical debt HIPAA request letter from the credit repair cloud library. It's a game changer. This is a powerful letter and it can work very well to scare the bejesus out of the debt collectors. You're essentially threatening a lawsuit for HIPAA violations. And you can usually convince any collection agency to delete the account if they have violated hipaa. Most agencies don't want to risk a lawsuit, so this usually works. And if you have to negotiate, if all else fails, use any violations as leverage to negotiate a paper deletion deal. It's not ideal, but it's a solid backup plan. Here's my final point. Medical debt is different from all other kinds of debt. It's not about overspending, it's about a broken system. And even people with health insurance can end up drowning in bills that they can't afford. With the right tools and strategies, you can fight back and take control of your credit. And I'll end by saying, if you want to learn how to make your dispute letters even more effective, check out my top five tips here. And if you'd like to improve your credit score and discover how to earn extra income repairing Credit for others, check out my brand new Start Repairing Credit Challenge. So sign up right now@startrepairingcredit.com and keep changing lives.
