Hospital acct went to collections...

[Tom_Mi]

Hi All,
After our discharge 7 months ago (with our finances in shambles) my wife had a problem that dropped a 3,600 medical bill on us. We had no choice but to avoid it and try to talk the hospital in to clemency -- no luck.

Well it went to a collection agency and we can now start making payments on it. So my question is, is there any way to turn these regular payments into a credit-REBUILDING process?

Does making regular payments to the collection people help me, or do they only show the original amount getting more and more late?

Are regular payments to a collection agency worthless on my FICO because a 'collection' account is derogatory in the first place?

Would the hospital consider pulling the debt back in-house? Do I care, even if they would?

[cupcake]

I think the only way you could put a positive spin on this, in terms of your credit score, would be to pay the bill with a credit card, which gets the collection account closed and also gets your payments on the bill reporting to the credit bureaus. But, that's assuming you have a credit card you could put it on.

I'm fairly certain that payments to either the CA or the hospital would not be reported and I don't think the hospital could/would reassume the debt from the CA anyway.

I'm sorry for what you are going through. It probably seems like you are never going to get ahead. You will get past this; I promise. Hang in there!