A negative medical debt credit history can follow you around like a bad penny.
Not exact matches
Medical debt often appears as
negative payment history on credit reports, which then affects generic risk scores used to make lending decisions.
It's therefore no surprise that of all
debts that only report
negative information,
medical debts have the highest balances.
Finally, employers need to realize that a
negative credit entry could be due to something that is not job - related, such as a dispute over a
debt, or
medical bills.
Although filing bankruptcy still has a
negative connotation for some, many people who have struggled with unemployment, high
medical bills, foreclosures, lawsuits, or delinquent
debt may not have another option and may be considering whether or not it is right for them.
The healthcare industry is the single biggest customer of the
debt collection industry, constituting 42 % of the collection market, versus only 29 % for the banking & finance sector.34 One stunning statistic from a 2003 Federal Reserve study is that over half of accounts reported by
debt collectors and nearly one - fifth of lawsuits that show up as
negative items on credit reports are for
medical debts.35 Moreover, often
medical debts are sent to
debt collectors for reasons completely out of the consumer's control, such as disputes between insurance companies and providers, or even the result of the provider's failure to properly bill the insurer.
And when
medical debt is reported, even with a balance, it doesn't carry the same
negative weight in the credit score calculation that it used to.
The good news for consumers with
medical debt is that these
negative entries to a credit report can be removed under certain circumstances.
In the new score models,
medical collections are now treated differently than other types of
debt «resulting in
medical debt having less of a
negative impact than with Classic FICO,» according to FHFA's request for input.
«All groups expressed concern that the escalating student
debt load trend was restricting recruitment and possibly having a
negative impact on the choice of career pathway among veterinary
medical graduates.»