If you're watching this video it's
probably because you just received a
medical debt collection in the mail or
you're currently paying on a medical
collection!
Well,
in this video we're going to talk about
ways to settle your medical collection
debt for literally pennies on the dollar
or
how to get that medical debt forgiven
and if you've already made payments on
your medical collections i'm gonna tell
you a way that you might actually be
entitled to a refund for those payments
so
let's get into it
Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel
it's me Jazzy Mac thank you so much for
coming back and if you're new to my
channel go ahead and hit that like and
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notifications
I have some pretty heavy stuff i'm going
to talk about as far as your medical
collections those icky icky collections
that seem to haunt all of us
i'm going to break it down into two
scenarios basically
um for if you have a medical collection
that you just got that's not on your
credit versus a medical collection that
is on your credit and we're going to
talk about the differences in how to
treat those collections and how to make
them go away so before we get into it
guys i want you to
basically do something for me so i can
gauge
what type of content i need to put out
as a follow-up to this go ahead and type
a number "1" in the comment box if you
currently have medical debt in
collections just give me a number one
and give me a number "2"
if you've actually paid off a collection
for medical debt so a number one if you
currently have medical collections a
number two if you've paid off a medical
collection within the last few years
because i'm telling you
the ones for those of you that have paid
off um a collection you might be
entitled to a refund that's why i'm
trying to get you guys to understand
like
this is serious business you don't have
to just buckle down and pay stuff
because sometimes they're not entitled
to that payment so let's hop right in
and let's talk about some things so
let's just get into the first scenario
where
um if you have a medical collection that
let's say you just got it in the mail
today
what you would need to do to handle that
um and to possibly make it go away so
let's say you got a procedure
and that procedure cost two thousand
dollars but you've received a collection
in the mail for that same medical
procedure that states that you owe
three thousand dollars and there is a
breakdown that shows that you owe two
thousand for the procedure you owe
500 for the collection fee and then
they're charging you 500 in interest
let's just assume that's how they came
to the 3 000 number do you pay it
absolutely not you know why because
jazzy mac told you not to
and because jazzy mac is going to tell
you what your consumer rights are as
well so let's look at your rights the
first thing that you want to do anytime
you get a medical collection um notice
in the mail whether you think it's right
or not you always want to ask for
validation when we ask for validation we
are challenging the collection agency
to provide proof that the account indeed
belongs to us number one and that those
charges that they're stating are ours
um we want them to be able to back up
what they're saying and to prove it and
not just say oh here's a balance but you
prove it by providing the original
contracts with our wet signature
that shows that we agree to those terms
and agreements so that's the first thing
you want to do now you don't necessarily
want to do this over the phone
um you know because it's you know it's
it's
not a paper trail and anytime that you
communicate with a collection agency you
always want to have a paper trail in
case you have to escalate it at a later
time and i'll tell i'll talk about who
you can escalate to
um in these situations so the first
thing you're going to do is create um
write out your validation letter
to
the collection agency asking for the
original contract but you're also going
to include the line for hipaa because
according to hipaa
your information cannot be shared um
with a third party without your prior
consent meaning that you would have had
to sign an agreement that says you give
authorization for the medical facility
to share that information with the third
party in this case being the collection
agency um and them reporting information
about you as far as sending you a notice
saying that you owe something that's
sharing your information so we're gonna
we want to challenge that because one
it's not legal for them to do that if
you didn't give prior consent and then
two
um it's also a way for you to just make
sure that you're keeping people honest
and you're not letting people take
advantage of you so if you ask for the
validation letter and they're not able
to provide you
with validation within 30 days then
legally they're not able to collect it
and they should either refer the account
back to the facility or they should
forgive the debt altogether if they have
indeed purchased that debt from the
facility so again if it's not valid
meaning they can't provide you the
original contracts um they cannot
continue to pursue that from you because
you number one don't have an agreement
with them um in addition where you trip
them up at is if they do provide a
contract to you and that contract does
not explicitly state that you give
authorization to a third party to access
your records that is a hipaa violation
when we talk about hipaa violations now
we're getting into
where they can be severely fined
by the cfpb which is the consumer
finance protection bureau in fact there
was just a case where um
there was a collection agency
that actually violated uh one of the
hipaa laws
and they were required to pay consumers
back and not only the money that the
consumer had spent paying off the debt
but they had to give them an extra
thousand dollars for damages and as a
violation fee and they also had to pay
250 000
i believe in restitution
so trust me
um you have rights and you need to
exercise those rights and so if um the
collection efforts were to continue
um after they have failed to provide
validation that's when you want to do
your cfpb complaint um and you want to
file that complaint against the
collection agency uh for illegally
pursuing a debt um and also for
violating your hipaa violating the hipaa
privacy laws and trust me the cfpb does
not take that type of stuff uh lightly
they take it very seriously so usually
that will result in if it's a hipaa
violation usually the debt will either
be forgiven or you'll be
not required to pay the debt um you know
there's going to be some sort of you
know outcome if if the hipaa
um was violated so that's if you don't
get validation and it you know
is a violation
however on the flip side
as far as medical debt being reported on
your credit
uh when it's past that initial 30-day
mark
when you first get it in the mail if
it's on your credit there's a couple of
different things you want to do
to again challenge it so as far as
asking for validation with
in this case if it's on your credit i
would personally
do the dispute process with the credit
bureau
and the first scenario we did with the
collection agency in this scenario we do
it with the credit bureau because
they're the ones that are listing it out
so you want to just write your dispute
letters ask for validation and also
mention hipaa and again i have the
templates below if you don't feel
comfortable just drafting a letter from
scratch i have templates below for how
you ask for medical
debt validation
and how you need to insert that hipaa
wording so that your case is treated in
a different way than how they would
treat general
disputes so i have that below but again
you want to make sure that in the case
of it being on your credit report you go
and dispute it directly with the three
bureaus if that's where they're
appearing um if you don't hear back in
30 days if they can't validate it in 30
days then by law they are supposed to
remove that account completely
from your credit uh report altogether
okay so if they do not do that and they
do not provide validation they don't
provide you the original contracts and
they can't you know um show you like a
signature where you've signed off
acknowledging the debt within a contract
then that's when we also again want to
escalate to big brother who's big
brother the cfpb the cfpb um is where
you'll file the complaint against the
credit bureau and against the collection
agency on the same complaint i also have
that mapped out in my credit roadmap
i've tried to make it super super easy
for you guys to follow these steps
because they really are simple steps to
get that debt like completely removed so
that's um
just pretty much you know the rundown
for if these debts can't be validated
now let's say
uh you have a collection that is
completely valid you've read through the
contract you've acknowledged that you
know you actually did give a third party
um access to your information you signed
off on it let's say the debt is
completely valid
well
what you can do is you can offer to do a
debt settlement now if it's on your
credit report we're not doing anything
um without a written notice saying that
they will delete it from your credit
after payment that's known as a pay for
delete um but if it is not on your
credit yet then you can negotiate for a
much lower amount and the thing is
they purchase these debts for pennies on
a dollar they can buy a thousand dollar
debt for literally a hundred dollars so
if you owe
a collection of a thousand dollars but
you just say hey i only have 200 that's
it
take it or leave it
they're normally going to take it
especially if you use the b word what is
the b word the b word is bankruptcy if
you ever
mention like hey i just want to i just
want to clear this debt up i want to
settle it for less i only have 200 if
you don't accept it then i'm just going
to add it to my bankruptcy pal and you
guys won't get anything i mean they're
going to say oh wait wait no
we'll take it or hey could you do 40
instead or can you do 50 of the debt to
market as resolved and for us to take it
off your credit or stop pursuing you
whatever the case may be so you want to
exercise using the b word um if that
situation
applies to you um some of you may have
different strategies or tactics that you
may use um but for me it was using the b
word um because at one point i did
consider bankruptcy until i found out
that you know
student loans wouldn't go away with
bankruptcy um that was before i paid off
my student loans that was years ago but
the b word use it use it to your
advantage especially if you're going
through a financial hardship i'm not
telling you to file for bankruptcy but
i'm telling you to use it strategically
as a way to convince them to settle your
debt
and as i mentioned
if you've already paid some medical
collections
there may possibly be
a refund in your future
depending on who you paid
and i'll explain that so
that same i'm just going to look at my
notes here
that same story that i was telling you
about when cfpb took action against that
medical debt collector and um charged
him with that 500 000
penalty for violating hipaa laws so
basically when you get
any type of collection letter in the
mail
five days prior to you getting that
letter in the mail you're supposed to
have gotten a phone call
um just you know a verbal phone call
saying hey it's abc collection company
we're calling to collect a debt and
here's your debt amount
so after you get that call they're
supposed to send you a written notice
um of the debt
what happens many times is people go and
pull up their credit report and they
look and see that they've got a medical
collection on there and they never even
got anything in the mail no one ever
called them no one ever gave them the
opportunity to rectify it
it just popped up on their credit report
that is a direct violation of the
consumer finance protection bureau's
guidelines around a medical debt
collection you have to give the consumer
um a fair amount of time to rectify that
debt and to resolve it
but many companies are very cutthroat
they won't give you that opportunity to
resolve it and they'll immediately
report it to your credit
because now they just they're using that
as a scare tactic to get you to just pay
them
and you know again that is against the
law so if you are one of those people
that that's happened to you file your
complaint with the cfpb and depending on
the company that you're filing it
against you may be entitled to getting
not only a refund back for the medical
collection amount that you paid
and having it removed from your credit
but you also might be entitled to
getting um up to a thousand dollars in
damages and no that doesn't even require
you to go to court many times those are
things that are settled outside of court
and those are things that have already
amounts that have already been allocated
for consumers so you want to
make sure that you read up on that i'll
actually put that article i think i'll
um put it in the description box for you
guys to read because it's a very very
interesting piece
of knowledge to have as far as like i
never knew that you could get refunds
for medical collection debt until a few
years ago
when i disputed some things um and you
know
you can either dispute it you know
through the method i've discussed or
sometimes you can even dispute it
through the bank
um if you can prove that the cfpb has
stated that they illegally collected
those funds from you you can absolutely
dispute that with the bank and get your
money back as long as it's not passed
you know the bank's dispute uh window
so
again you know challenge every single
medical collection that you get it is
your consumer right
do not pay something blindly even if you
think you owe it challenge it because
chances are they tacked on some fees
that you didn't even pay attention to
and that's how they get rich so um
in the course of doing that never just
admit to owing a debt always say hey i
don't know if i owe that and what you
know you want to
like play dumb because if you admit to
owing it or if you acknowledge um the
debt then that resets the clock for the
statute of limitations for how long they
can collect or pursue the debt from you
so i hope all of that makes sense um you
know
i i just i hate that
this country is just just built on greed
from these corporations that take
advantage of consumers and so that's why
i try to put this information out there
and i hope that it was helpful let me
know what your situation is if you are
currently facing a collection or if
you're being harassed by a collection
agency which is also illegal
let's talk about that in the comments so
i hope that was helpful
and i hope you enjoyed it until the next
time people i will see you later stay
safe stay healthy and stay beautiful bye
you