Collections agencies need to provide you with an itemized list of what you owe and to who.
If a hospital gives out this information, especially if they didn’t even try to collect it themselves, they have violated HIPPA.
Will a collections agency give you a document proving they vioated HIPPA? No. Do you owe debts on something w/o receipts? No.
Is this actually true or just something that is technically but not effectively true?
Even a cursory Google proved this one isn’t just wrong, but super wrong.
Patients and their families are contacted by debt collectors about medical bills more than any other type of debt, and it commonly results in negative information appearing on credit records. In fact, in 2021, 43 million people had allegedly unpaid medical bills on their credit reports.
https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/blog/medical-debt-anything-already-paid-or-under-500-should-no-longer-be-on-your-credit-report/#:~:text=Patients and their families are,bills on their credit reports.
Almost certainly flatly untrue. Medical debt in the US goes to collections agencies all of the time. According to the CFPB, consumer credit debt from credit records totals around $88B USD. If this was some sly loophole, someone would have figured it out and won in court by now.
This seems like bad advice at best and actively harmful at worst.
People “win” and get medical debt dismissed all the fucking time. HIPPA doesn’t fuck around.
Think, not a lawyer, it’s not effectively true. Collection doesn’t need medical records, they just need a number to go after. Hell collections don’t even need to prove you have the debt they are going after, they can still go after you. Lots of stories of people paying off debt and still getting calls about it
When you get a bill in the mail from a collections agency you can request that the agency validate the debt, and they will have to formally provide the following information before you are required to repay the debt:
[collection agency’s] name and mailing address
the name of the creditor you owe it to
how much money you owe, written out to include interest, fees, payments, and credits
what to do if you don’t think it’s your debt
your debt collection rights, including your right to get information about the original creditor if you ask for it within 30 days of getting validation information from the collector
This is true. It can’t be sent to collections lol. When it’s sent to collections, it needs to be itemized. The collections agency that “purchases” your collections will require an itemization of what is owed.
Is this a “just trust me bro”, or do you have a reputable source to back up what you’re saying?