Is this actually true or just something that is technically but not effectively true?
this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
12 points (80.0% liked)
You Should Know
33026 readers
719 users here now
YSK - for all the things that can make your life easier!
The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:
Rules (interactive)
Rule 1- All posts must begin with YSK.
All posts must begin with YSK. If you're a Mastodon user, then include YSK after @youshouldknow. This is a community to share tips and tricks that will help you improve your life.
Rule 2- Your post body text must include the reason "Why" YSK:
**In your post's text body, you must include the reason "Why" YSK: It’s helpful for readability, and informs readers about the importance of the content. **
Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.
Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.
Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.
That's it.
Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.
Posts and comments which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.
Rule 6- Regarding non-YSK posts.
Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-YSK posts using the [META] tag on your post title.
Rule 7- You can't harass or disturb other members.
If you harass or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.
If you are a member, sympathizer or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.
For further explanation, clarification and feedback about this rule, you may follow this link.
Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.
Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.
Let everyone have their own content.
Rule 10- The majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here.
Unless included in our Whitelist for Bots, your bot will not be allowed to participate in this community. To have your bot whitelisted, please contact the moderators for a short review.
Partnered Communities:
You can view our partnered communities list by following this link. To partner with our community and be included, you are free to message the moderators or comment on a pinned post.
Community Moderation
For inquiry on becoming a moderator of this community, you may comment on the pinned post of the time, or simply shoot a message to the current moderators.
Credits
Our icon(masterpiece) was made by @clen15!
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
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.
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.
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?
This is false. It can be sent to collections lol. When it's sent to collections, it is not itemized. The collections agency that "purchases" your collections does not receive an itemized list of things you're charged for, they just receive an amount.
Source: Personal experience. Lol
I would never pay a debt without information about what is owed. 0 chance that holds up. They just hope you're not smart enough.
Not sure of the situation in the US but here in Switzerland collections companies are probably the shadiest bunch of tryhards you can find. They’ll straight up lie to you, bully you into paying stuff you don’t owe and there’s basically no real oversight. It’s quite a problem and our politicians seem unwilling to do anything and if you tell the people here that you need to do something to protect people from debt collect, they go the old shaming route.
All of that, keep in kind, in a ststem where I can go straight to the goverment, with basically no proof of anything, pay 40.- tell them how much I think someone once me and they will send that person a very stern worded letter comanding them to pay that, tell them why they should not pay it and if you don’t react or pay it lands before a court. All those things are also put into a register that new landlords and sometimes even employers wanna see from you. And if someone wrongfully sends you one of these or you actually pay them, they will still be in that register and fuck you over for the next 5 years.
So we don’t need debt collectors yet those cockroaches still rake in millions if not billions every year in what is basically extortion.
They are similar in the states. They will lie at the drop of a dime. They cannot hold medical debt against you. It's VERY easy to dismiss this kind of shit.
As everyone else has confirmed - the title is incorrect, medical debt absolutely can be sent to collections
What OP likely misunderstood is the practice of validating a debt - this is not a loophole to get out of paying your debts, this is a basic legal protection to prevent malicious collection agencies from fraudulently pursuing invalid debts. 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
A collector has to give you “validation information” about the debt either when they first communicate with you or within five days of the first contact. The collector has to include the following
Federal Trade Commission - Consumer Advice - Debt collection FAQ
"the name of the creditor you owe it to" HIPPA Violation #1
This is absolutely false information. Third party business associates are considered covered entities under the Privacy Rule. The hospital signs a contract with a collection agency and thus that business can now access your health information as an institute of the hospital. You don't need to sign away your rights if it is considered an essential activity of the hospital, which billing and payments are. Also, it's HIPAA.
And you aren't being treated anywhere without signing a privacy HIPAA notice.
Asking a patient to sign away their HIPPA rights is illegal
Could you please add a “Why YSK:”? It’s rule #2. It's also helpful for readability, and informs readers about the importance of the content. Thank you. :)
This is a great example why seeing downvoted is an important feature, people just upvote without fact checking
Where are you going where you aren't required to sign a financial disclosure allowing for the relevant information to be sent to whatever service is used to collect payment? I haven't been to a single doctor's office, urgent care, or hospital in several years that didn't require me signing a form consenting to that.
Collections also doesn't need to provide an itemized list of every detail you owe for, not in the way you're implying at least. They're not about to say "you owe the hospital $20 for an aspirin." They can, however, say "you owe [this hospital] [this dollar amount] for services on [this date]." The itemization they're required to give is the current debt, any fees and interest, and any payments or credits made on it. That's straight from CFPB.
I've never signed away my HIPPA rights to a hospital lol
This is why most hospitals and such have their own internal collections.
Good luck affecting my credit w/ an internal system