Do hospital bills affect credit scores?
Yes, they affect your score like any other type of bills. If you have an overdue hospital balance that is sent to collection (and is therefore reported to the credit reporting agencies as well), it will lower your score like any other form of collections.
I just checked the blog's search tool and found a similar question from last month. So I won't repeat it all here. Check out this Q&A session: Overdue Medical Bills and Credit Scores
If you fail to pay your hospital bills, it will show up in the "Account History" section of your credit report. Your scores are based on the information within these reports, so the overdue bills will have a negative impact on your credit score as well. And it could be a significant reduction, depending on other factors. Check out the FICO score chart we put together and you'll see that payment history is the largest single chunk of your score.
If you are already past due on your hospital bills, it may not be too late. You could still avoid having the account sent to collection. Many hospital billing departments operate under a 30 / 60 / 90 rule of thumb. They send a late notice after 30 days, then a stronger one after 60 days, and if the bills are not paid after 90 days they'll report it to the credit reporting agencies.
Don't take the 90-day thing as gospel though -- it's just a rule of thumb. They could very well report the unpaid hospital bills after 30 days, if they wanted to. And it could affect your credit score shortly after that.
Related articles:
Labels: scores
posted by Brandon at
5:52 AM
