Wellthatsucks
I'm tired boss
Discussion
This is fucking insane. The healthcare system in the States as a whole is fucking disgusting.
What health care system is this you’re talking about? Is there actually a system?
Yeah there’s a system but it’s setup to siphon the common folks money any and every way that only makes sense to those who get the money. That’s why it feels like there’s no system to us commoners cause for us there really isn’t.
**Healthcare Business. FTFY
and it's only getting worse :3
As a non-american I'd actually say so, because an abdomen and pelvis CT costs ₹2,500 here in India (at a government facility) which roughly translates to $30.
This country is a crime against humanity. Damn near everything is ran like this. If it doesn't bleed your wallet dry it tears your body down physically so that you owe someone else money. And no one stops it.
When I broke my spine they sent be a bill for $250k “due in 30 days”, this was with insurance. I framed it and put it on the wall of my one bedroom apartment. After months of telling them “I don’t have any money”, which was the truth, it all magically went away. It’s all stupid
That shit made me laugh. Despite not being NEARLY as much as your case, it made me giggle knowing I have like 200 dollars to my name at the moment and I'm to pay 3k+ in 20 days.
I thought "You stupid idiots" 😭
Ha glad I got a laugh. True story too.
At one point during my recovery I needed some super special prescription to prevent a potentially permanently paralyzing infection in my spinal cord. 5 pills, special ordered, $10k per pill; again this is with insurance. I just sent the surgeon an email “I appreciate all the work you did on my spine, unfortunately I cannot afford this medication so I guess I’ll just go die now”. Never did get a return letter, but again like magic a day later the pharmacy called and the cost of the medication dropped to $10.
I guess my pro tip here is to just never pay your bills, which is quite easy to do when you really can’t 🥲
It’s also honestly okay cause medical debt doesn’t affect the archaic system of a credit score either. Don’t have to worry about that medical debt causing you to not get an apartment or house or even just having a good credit report.
If you owe me 250,000, you're in trouble. If I own you 250,000, you're in trouble.
Fuck the healthcare industry and its overinflated costs. 🤬
This is bill 7, I've been em getting since my emergency apandectomy in January. Sadly, no benefits at my job. I'm just kind a screwed and could not retroactively apply medicaid in my state because I'm pretty much the worst category (unmarried male in my 20s)
Thank you for you shared anger, it helped! Fuck it hard! It's even worse because I was born and raised in Germany... if only I hadn't had to move to the states
Non profit hospitals MUST provide assistance to lower your bill or even just write it off if you qualify for assistance. If Medicare is accepted, the ACA requires they also have a written Financial Assistance Plan.
There is a specific dollar amount they have to meet each year to keep their non-profit status. The first of the year is usually when funding is released and it goes quick but it might be worth a try.
Call and tell them you can't pay it. They'll ask for your W-2 and work details and if it's low enough, they might lower or just erase it.
I did that once for a $3k bill when I wasn't making much and it just got forgiven.
That's something I haven't thought of. I will absolutely try to drag my pathetic W2 into the matter if it'll help.
I just got bill 2… I hope to god it’s the last one
I hope so for you. Med bill twins. Best of luck to ya
Mine went sour while I was at work. Wish I could claim it as a work injury. But that’s just a fantasy
Just dont pay it.
I know of 2 people that racked up over 25k in hospital bills due to an emergency and just flat out told their billing department 25k is never, ever, going to happen. They cant create money they dont have. Offered to send their pay stubs even.
Hospital later dropped the bills
NO. They WILL send you to collections and it's a gigantic stressful hassle.
Call them and explain.
Yeah i included that. The fact is you can't extract blood from a stone.
No, you can't. But running from it just ends up with you getting harassed by Collections callers.
Call the hospital and tell them you can't pay. See what they say. Like I said elsewhere, I had debt entirely dropped after showing I didn't have income.
You’re in your 20s, just ignore it and it’ll be off your record in 7 years. Fuck them.
At your job?
They tried to bill Tricare, which is the military health care. You may wanna look into that.
twas my father's healthcare, a vet. I no longer qualify, not sure why they tried to run it
You need to call them and let them know you had no insurance, and ask if there is anything you can do to get a reduced rate - 90% of the time, your cost will magically plummet.
Bill 7?? From that same provider ? Most providers send no more than 3 stmts. have in mind hospital & professional services are separate bills separate provider therefore not considered the same provider.
Sorry, not all 7 bills are from radiology. it's the total number of bills from every department. You're saying a payment plan is the best option, correct? That is what I did for the initial wave of bills. I'm planning on doing so after talking it out irl.
Smallest plan I can, but an actual auto pay plan, not just small payments. that's not even an option as far as I can see, either I pay in full or in a plan. Sorry if I'm confusing, and I really appreciate your advice and ear.
As as I said in a different comment somewhere in here, I am self pay uninsured. the tricare doesn't cover me and I don't qualify for medicaid sadly.
This is truly the issue with our medical system.
Looks fake, throw it away lol /s
I don’t take things seriously until they address it with my middle name, Final Notice
My wife and I just had our first child this year and things didn't go as planned.... Needless to say we received a bill for 50kish with insurance. I asked for an itemized bill and compared the costs vs the rates from fair health and other similar sites and was able to get the bill down to 20k which is still totally fucked seeing it was all to keep my wife and baby alive after complications.. so I'll be paying on that till my kid is out of highschool or longer ... A friend of mine works in health insurance and he said hes seen bills upwards of 1.2 million for NICU babies which thankfully our baby didn't need to stay over a couple days
You’re gonna take 18 years to pay $20,000? What’s your yearly income?
I could pay it off sooner, just don't see the point when the money I'm not putting towards it could sit in an account and gain interest to try and have some money for my kids college if that hasn't 10x again but so long as something gets paid on it every month it won't default or anything
what’s the interest rate on the payment plan? that would help you the optimal decision here.
Lol for now nothing 12 month "same as cash" bs after that is 11% so I'll have to do another ror then
The ones that told you to wait til it goes to collections then negotiate are completely and totally right hell even if it doesn’t go to collections but you get up to 180 days of delinquency then negotiate you’ll save thousands. I work in the debt settlement field
Thank you, your professional insight is definitely very useful to me right now. I keep teetering between that option and just setting up more tiny payment plans so I paid off for the next 20 damn years, but 500 of it has already gone to collections from a separate smaller bill, that I'm about to try to negotiate down when I save up some money. As always, the issue is money
Negotiating is def the way to go it’ll save you tons if not thousands and you actually get freedom from that debt.. man I had a client who had a $10,000 cap one debt and was paying on that for 5 years ended up paying over $36,000 over this time frame and still owed cap one $10,000. interest rates can be very brutal… no prob though and you can definitely do this most just takes a little patience and saving
Don’t do tiny payments, if you make payments without being on a payment plan they’re not considered payments towards your balance. Do not just ignore the bill, please see my other comment, I’m trying to help you.
Even if you plan to make it go to collections, reach out to the providers and ask if they can do something about those bills. As others have said, you can talk them down a whole lot.
Also if descriptions on a bill seem they just made something up like "non-sterile materials $900" or grouped a bunch of stuff together, ask them to detail it out. What were the non-sterile items etc?
If this was done in a hospital, check with your care advocate at the hospital. Have them help you navigate the billing and ask them (or otherwise the billing department) if there are any debt relief grants/programs they can recommend. There are often non-profit organizations that will help with debt relief from medical procedures.
Good luck!
Thank you, I greatly appreciate your advice. I did ask to speak to their financial / billing dept. but they said I need to reach out to the entities billing me to discuss it with them, there's only a handful but I opted to set up payment plans instead, which was a mistake (or not, I can't decide anymore)
Yeah, even in a hospital the different services are performed by different providers. So you'll indeed need to talk to every single provider about their bill.
If you had health insurance, sometimes they'll claim certain providers were out of network and get you to pay the out of network rates. Just be aware that if the hospital is in network and you had no say in the providers the hospital used to provide you these services, then all of those providers are considered in-network. I know this doesn't matter to you now, but file that away as a future FYI.
Thank you, I really do appreciate it
My wife visit about a sprain costed 6500$ i slow paid 50$ a month for a year and called them and said if i pay 1000$(what i got from taxes) can we call it square? They accepted it.
Looks like $10 a month for 384 months it is.
CT scans are 100% covered by Medicare in Australia. An MRI will cost you maby $200.
When i visited vietnam i did a full body MRI for kicks and it was 250$. Cheaper to fly there visit family and do the needful there
And that's not even remarkable from a global perspective. It's just normal pretty much everywhere except for Murica.
Back in the days I did an MRI Scan once a quarter for about 4 years. Didn’t pay a penny in Germany. Sure, two extremes but the US is just insane.
I take it you dont have any insurance to run that through?
Was this an ER visit? I'm in medical billing so curious if they've exhausted all avenues. Have you filed a final appeal? Did you confirm they did all the appeals?
Sorry if you've answered, I just hate these fucking companies and radiology billing and appeals are my specialty.
If you have, ask if they can do self pay rates or if they can do charity. This is so shitty. You should not have to pay for this. It's fucked up.
(I wrote off as much as I could find and I enjoy fighting these ins companies for money)
how did you go from having tricare to not having anything jfc
It's my dad's, he's a vet. I don't qualify for it anymore because I'm over 21. I never served
The kicker also is they charge this for the CTs, yet there is a pretty large shortage of rad techs because they pay and treat us like garbage all over the country.
Give them $10 a month
Don’t pay that shit. Who needs a credit score anyway 😅
Didn't medical bills recently get removed from credit reports?
That’s where I’m at in life. I have a house, a car, everything I need. Fuck it. Current situation means food over unsecured debts. Fuck em
Good thing cars last forever.
Sorry to see it man. I'm happy your surgery went well though.
I appreciate it, I am too. I never thought I'd have a surgery soon. Was always a foreign idea to me. Thought I'd be 40 when I had my first or something lol.
Did you try negotiating with the provider
I dont understand. What are you supposed to pay for in this situation? Was it a small operation?
this particular bill is just from the radiology dept, as I need an MRI 2 times this year unfortunately.
It was an invasive op, an apandectomy. But it's a relatively simple surgery, only takes an hour or so I believe. I got separate bills for that
seperate bills even, jesus.
It crazy OP cause I got identical service, exact same everything even with contrast.
Cost me 75$
Altho I do pay like 3300 in premiums a year and my job covers other 2/3. So realistically about 10k per year for insurance to then pay 75$ more and then insurance pays hospital 7k$.
Bunch of nonsense. Do what you gotta do to feel better.
I’m sorry this is happening to you. I wish it wasn’t this way. I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s like to be in your shoes. I wish for good health and happiness for you.
DONT disregard the statement, reach out to Radiology Alliance, if not this will be sent to collections (within the next 1-2 weeks).
If you no longer have coverage through that insurance listed, call Tristar and ask for financial assistance, if approved they’ll adjust ur facility bill (hospital) and can send copy of the letter to this provider and they’ll honor the same discount.
If you don’t qualify for financial assistance or ur denied, then call the ph # on the statement ask for an application for their own financial assistance (note: this is only after the facility denies you). If you do the providers application make sure you send it ASAP. There’s options available such as financial assistance, self pay discount, payment plan, problem is not everyone calls about their bills and just ignores them. Lmk if you have any questions.
Do a payment plan, as low as like $10 a month for some
This still reflects insurance billing. If you have no coverage to bill, call them and ask for the self pay uninsured discounts before you make any arrangements. Further, since you have no insurance, check with the hospital where your service was done if they have a financial assistance program. You likely qualify. The provider bill (shown) should also get covered by FA.
OP, sorry if something already asked but, medical providers and/or insurance companies make mistakes ALL THE TIME. The bill states no coverage at the time of service. Have you verified that? Is your insurance new? It's possible of course that you didn't have coverage at the time of service, but please doublecheck. Call your insurance.
Then talk to the medical provider. Ask if there is a self-pay discount.
People mentioned medical debt and credit reporting. Know that IF this bill goes to collection you have basically a year from the "date of delinquency" before it can be credit reported. That gives you a chunk of time to either pay or appeal with insurance. While the CFPB nation wide prohibition on medical debt reporting has been flung into limbo, many states have their own laws. Illinois, California, I think maybe NY and Washington are states that don't allow and many others have considered.
If you do end up in collection, well, they're just people too. There are myriad laws to follow and many consumer protections. End of the day, they just want people who can to make an effort
Do you not have health insurance?
Nope, my own fault. Job doesn't offer any benefits. Can't work anywhere else for many reasons.
you never have to pay for these things by the way
Dude are you active duty? Cause if so resolving this with tri-care shouldn't be too bad. Dm me if you want I had a bunch of experience with that and then as a cobra policy.
Sadly not, my dad's tricare. I'm 24 so I'm over the age limit for parental coverage
Ahh got it. Well good luck man!
🫡
One thing you might try I think the age cap goes up to 27 if you're enrolled in college. Don't know if there are community colleges near you but maybe that could be a thing. You don't even have to be a full time student if I remember correctly.
Wow that’s absurd. I just had one done and it was $53. How do they expect people to pay that much for a simple procedure
I went to one of those neighborhood emergency rooms 7 years ago (because I thought I was dying) and it was a $350 co pay. I had to go again a few months back and it was $1,600. Same insurance. Quite the difference.
Its Tricare. Call the advocacy office on base. You have a POC to help coordinate crap like this. I bet it's just a missed referral
I never pay medical bills lol fuck em.
✨don't pay it, ignore it✨
It's the American way. 💖
Reminds me of the over $700,000 we got from our son being born.
These make me so sad
We are so blessed to have the NHS
I hope we can keep it
And I wish you luck OP X
It is appreciated :)
That exams, in Italy, without the government paying for it, costs 350€. Probably 450/500 for both (if that's a two sections in a single sit).
If prescribed by a doctor, 56 euro
If i owe someone 30 dollars I got a problem. If I owe someone 3000 dollars, they got a problem.
I love this aphorism
ITT: People didn't read the bill. It says you didn't have insurance coverage and the insurance carrier you had on file with them denied the claim because you weren't insured.
Did you have insurance and file a false claim? Or did you get laid off and lose insurance and not have COBRA yet? What happened here?
it's because I was formerly under my father's insurance, but it cut me off at 21. It looks like they tried to run it anyways because it was in my records , I'm not sure why Tricare even showed up really. I didn't even try to use it because I knew I was cut off already, at 24 years old
And I really appreciate you paying attention to the text lol
I could 100% be wrong so bonk me on the head if needed, but does healthcare bills go on your credit report if not paid? I was thinking this no longer applies, even if it goes to collections.
THIS IS A BILL
they have it every time. It makes me laugh.
In Australia radiology is covered 100% under Medicare. This is sad.
I've been getting "final notices" for 5 years now and it still hasn't gone away.
If your Tricare is still valid call them and get them to reprocess it.
Do you have an OOP maximum? Or was this just out of network? Odd how nothing is covered but not surprising knowing how healthcare is here
First, give them a call and let them know if they can give you some sort of discount because this bill will cause a hardship. Second, after that ask them if you can make monthly payments.
There might be a chance that they'll write it off, especially if you make less than average income in your area. Be ready to provide pay stubs or whatever you can show them that you won't be able to pay.
I just dont pay these bills.
Medical insurance in America is such BS it should not cost that much
Did you not have insurance at the time of this imaging?
In my mom’s word, “if you pay 25 dollars a month, they can’t send it to collections.”
This type of bill is why I will probably die from something that could have been cured but I dont want to be in medical debt.
Top left corner: This is a Bill
Well no shit 😒
I've never paid a hospital bill lol. Just send it to collections, it may or may not effect ur credit idk
At that point I’d just mail them a turd since they wanna be so shitty.
They just make prices up at this point. If it’s coded differently it probably is covered. I’d look into that.
Payment plan it. Don't let it go to collections.
Also it's because you don't have insurance.
Ok also how would you not know? You went in and had a Contrast MRI. that's why it's so expensive.
Except it's quite well known that hospitals in the US will happily grossly overcharge on everything since they can get away with it.. read other comments from other countries, prices range from $400 to $30.
Just because it's the US didn't make the same thing magically cost thousands.
Hospitals are up charged on drugs, people are up charged on procedures, insurance is up charged on procedures, it's a vicious cycle.
Collections it is. Try and take it!
God bless the UK and the NHS
Imagine going into the hospital for major surgery, staying for 2 weeks, getting discharged, and having NO bill to pay.
Its magical ✨️
My bill was 9k for them to scan me, tell me I have a kidney stone, and give me some painkillers.
Wth? An abdomen and pelvis CT costs ₹2,500 here in India (at a govt. facility) which is roughly $30.
Don't pay it. Medical debt is different from personal debt. It just goes away on its own after you successfully avoid answering the debt collector for a few years. This is literally the advice I got from my debt collector when I had no job, no home, no money, and a big medical bill.
Murica
That’s a steal, CTA is $8k in my hospital.
*laughs in European
I might have brain cancer (kinda a hypochondriac so probably not) But if I do I’m not even sure I wanna fight it because of these kinds of bills.
Good luck and health to you though, stranger.
I'm sure you may be tired of hearing sorry's, but I'm very sorry. I really am wishing you the best.
Become a Senator!
Land of the free (but not free healthcare)
Is this after insurance or no insurance?
"THIS IS A BILL"... Oh thank you, I wouldn't have noticed.
America is weird.
Thankfully Texas is forward thinking and has their eyes set on making weed illegal again.
Murica!
I'm in Australia. The other day I went to Doctor and got referral for chest xray. That's was free. Went to Radiologist which was next door and got xrays done, also free. Follow up with Doctor following week, also free.
Don't pay your medical bills. Fuck em.
I'd probably let it go to collections. They buy the debt for pennies on the dollar and I've seen people negotiate down to less than 50% or even as low as 30% of the original bill.
Yeah in the beginning I made payment plans for every bill, which might have been a mistake because now one day every month I owe 350 bucks when I was already poor.
I've been straight ignoring them until it goes to collections, and then I'll see about following your advice, thank you.
Yeah, do this. I’ve had to do the same thing. Just totally ignore them when it finally does go to collections you can deal with it then for much less. I am sure you’ve probably already heard the advice of calling the hospital and asking for an itemized bill because if they put every single thing they didand the code for that usually the amount goes down, but this is religiously high. I’m so so sorry I’m really sorry that your state doesn’t provide retroactive Medicaid. They should all have to, and this regime is evil for how many people it’s going to take this away from and cause your problem to happen to everyone.
Thank you, your words mean a lot. I'm glad to know I've still got some options from all the advice in this thread. I appreciate you all, even the harsh lesson comments, because they're troublingly correct.
OP, i had knee surgery in October. After all the insurance coverage blah, bill was 5500 from hospital.
In the payment portal, there was a link and form to fill out for “financial assistance”. I said what can this hurt to try right? Jumped through the hoops and provided them all the monthly bills i could find down to my 2.99 iCloud storage bill. Some i had monthly bills for and easy to find like mortgage and car payment, but i (reasonably) inflated my gas and grocery lines a bit for example.
They ZEROED OUT MY BALANCE! Wtf?!
I know every place is different but at least look into this option to see if available. I was shocked. I literally got a free invasive knee surgery.
There’s also no way 2 CT scans should cost more than $200 each anyway. They just make fucking numbers up these days. I don’t feel bad and neither should you if you can find a way to get discounts or forgiven. Good luck.
Yeah most hospitals are non profits and have funding for patients that can't pay.
Might not be worth taking a credit hit that small and being young. Try and call to negotiate or ask for the bill to be cheaper.
Ive done it the credit hit doesnt hurt much and when you tell the debt collectors this is your cease and desist by law they have to stop calling. If you track them and they dont you can also sue them. Also part of debt collection law.
This bill is already itemized. It’s 2 CT scans. Private insurance would pay far less than this. The OP should be able to negotiate it down with the Radiology company.
I swear to Christ man, call and do what I say.
Be very stoic but polite. Tell them you haven’t ever seen a billing like this and you do your own home accounting and will need an itemized version before you can start looking into payments. Really important you word it like that.
Sometimes those bills disappear, more often they get halved by the time an itemized invoice is provided.
Hang in there, I don’t know what this is for but your health is important.. just can’t make yourself homeless in the process. Being stern goes far.
This has changed significantly, likely due to how many people try it. I tried recently and the hospital was happy to immediately send it out with exactly what they were charging for everything. However, every charge was insanely high. Get a $5 medicine, $100 charge. What next?
Also tried this and had the exact same results as you. Didn't help at all
There's nothing additional to itemize here, it's two CT scans, the reading, and the contrast material (+Radiologist reading, techs, etc).
OP should do what the bill says and call their insurance company, either because their coverage lapsed, or they didn't have their card with them when they presented to the ER.
They may not even send it to collections. There is also a statute of limitations on debt (I’m sure it varies by state so double check, I can’t remember exactly which kinds of debt it applied to but it applied to mine.) I have good insurance but got one of those surprise out of network bills for $16k after surgery (this was back when it was allowed.) I ignored it, deciding that I’d deal with it if it went to collections. It never did and the clock ran out. I’m sorry that you’re dealing with this.
Many debts get sold in packages, so sometimes you get lucky and the collections agency makes enough to not care too much also
Can't be good for your credit tho, right? Sorry if this is a stupid question.
Fuck ‘em. Don’t pay it.
I had over $30K in medical debt and I just didn't pay it. Not one cent. Didn't acknowledge it at all. Bills went straight in the trash, phone calls went straight to voicemail. Got like 2 or 3 calls per month for like 3 or 4 years and then nothing. And oddly, none of it ever showed up on my credit report. That was like 12 or 13 years ago, so I have no idea if it would play out like this today. (Please note, I'm NOT recommending anyone do this. I'm simply just stating my experience.)
As far as I know medical debt doesn't affect credit, and it never has on mine. And can be disputed after 7 years last I heard.
Letting it go to collections isn't going to help your credit one bit. First, contact the hospital and negotiate a lower amount and secondly, even if you pay a small amount like $25/mo, it can't go to collections because you're paying something, even if it's lower then the specified minimum. So pay what you can without impacting your ability to pay other bills.
Not as much an issue anymore:
https://www.cnbc.com/select/medical-debt-credit-report/
Unfortunately there have been subsequent developments since the new administration took over. The administration has joined the lawsuit to overturn the rule that the prior administration created.
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/26/nx-s1-5406799/cfpbs-medical-debt-credit-report-lawsuit
No bc with minimum payments to creditors they charge interest so you’ll be paying that minimum to them and never actually get out of the debt, credit won’t be hit but that debt won’t go anywhere… letting it go to collections then will hurt the credit score yes but still after you negotiate the balance and pay it it still does your credit good AND you actually get free from that debt
I’ve never been charged interest with a hospital bill.
This is the answer ✅👍🤣
Do you have insurance?
If you do check to see Tricare is within your network.
If not, call the hospital and negotiate a payment plan.
i ignore them in collections as well. fuck it. not paying it
Before it goes to collections, call the hospital and ask for a self pay/cash bill. Also ask them to provide details and tell them you're not paying $200 for a dose of Tylenol or whatever. At least that way the bill will be smaller when it goes to collections. Debt collectors don't always negotiate. Depending where it goes, they may also take you to small claims court, which would allow them to get a lien or garnishment. It's rare, but it happens.
I had .33 cents go to collection because I thought my card was paid off. They wanted $150
Useless parasitic dregs
I tried to fight it but they threatened to contact the credit bureau. I was like…for 33 cents?!?!.
What does that even mean? Let it go to collections?
Don't pay and the original debt goes from the company you owe to another company that specializes in collecting debt.
And can’t medical debt no longer be used against you in credit decisions?
That i am not sure about. I've heard/seen people mention that but I've never looked into it.
Great theory and all. I had a roommate who did this and it went from collections to a court judgement and garnishing more than half his wages. He now has a 2nd job. Call and work out a payment plan to avoid all that. He didnt...
How long did he let it sit in collections? If you negotiate and pay it within a year it doesn't go on your credit report. Idk what company would garnish wages for a medical bill that can't even go on your credit report for a year.
It wasnt long. Like 2 or 3 months. Then surprise! Half your check deducted weekly. They give zero shi*s about how much you need to live and do not consult you. Just straight up half your pay gone until its paid.
Did he show up to the court date?
I dont think he ever got any notice of one. Hes so lazy if he did he wouldn't have showed either. Just the surprise youre being garnished! I kept telling him to call the hospital and arrange a payment plan like I did. No collections, stopped calls, and after awhile it was paid off. He ignored the bills, ignored the repeated calls. The calls stopped and his pay was garnished by the courts.
Going to collections is a hell of a way to start out your 20s and just setting yourself up for even more financial pain in the future.
Ask for an itemized invoice, then negotiate it down.
Medical debt has a 1 year wait until it goes on your credit report. As long as they pay it within that year, it won't affect their credit.
Huh. Good to know.
I straight up let a $1600 colonoscopy bill 9 years ago go to collections, ignored every call and email from the collection agency, and it just evaporated. Haven't heard a peep in about 6 years; nothing on my credit report, no letters/calls (haven't moved or changed my phone number either). Still going to the same provider like nothing happened.