Pay Medical Bills

After a period of nonpayment, the hospital or health care facility will likely sell unpaid health care bills to a collections agency, which works to recoup its investment in your debt.You can't make medical debt and hospital bills disappear by ignoring them, experts say.

That means you have a legal obligation to pay the collection agency, not the hospital. If you pay the hospital $1,000 for the debt, you will still have a legal obligation to pay the collection agency.The original creditor could keep the money you owe and not inform the collection agency of anything.

And here's what happens if you don't pay medical bills: phone calls and letters.Later, if you are still unable to make payments, the collectors might try to sue you in an effort to garnish wages or put a lien on your property.

It's possible in some cases to negotiate with a lender to repay a debt after it's already been sent to collections. Working with the original creditor, rather than dealing with debt collectors, can be beneficial.

Making payments on a medical bill doesn't necessarily keep it out of collections.Protections under the Affordable Care Act give patients at nonprofit hospitals time to apply for financial assistance before any extraordinary collection measures are taken. But for the most part, any unpaid balance is fair game.

Federal, state, and local governments support uncompensated care to uninsured Americans and others who cannot pay for the costs of their care, primarily as hospital ($23.6 billion) and clinic services ($7 billion).

If the collection agency bought the debt from the creditor (rather than the creditor just assigning the debt to the agency for collection), the agency owns the debt. If you negotiate with and make payments to the creditor, the collector may refuse to credit you for those payments.

If you choose not to pay the bills or refuse to work with the hospital on a payment plan, the bills will likely be sent to debt collection. After a period of time, the collection agency can report the debt to credit bureaus.

It's much better to deal with creditors than debt collectors. Whatever the past-due debt is for doctor bills, credit card payments, car loan the creditor may still see you as a potential return customer. A debt collector's only interest is squeezing money out of you.