Don't Let Medical Bills Ruin Your Credit

Medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy according to many financial sources. Unfortunately, many people neglect their medical bills without realizing the impact that those unpaid bills could have on their credit score.

How Medical Bills Can Hurt Your Credit

After you receive medical services, your physician or hospital will bill you for any portion that wasn't covered by insurance. Just like any other bill, medical bills have a due date. If you don't pay by the due date, your bill becomes past due. Hospitals will only send you so many past due notices before they give your account to a third-party debt collector to resume collection efforts.

When the debt collector receives your medical bill, one of the first things it will do is report the account to one or all of the three major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion). The medical collection account is considered a serious delinquency and can remain on your credit report for up to seven years, the maximum amount of time permitted by law.

Your credit score - the number creditors and lenders often use to approve your applications for new loans and credit - is based solely on information that's in your credit report. Since having a collection account on your credit report indicates you have a seriously delinquency in your credit history, your credit score will drop when a new collection is added to your credit report. The more medical collections accounts you have, the lower your credit score will be.

Protect Your Credit from Medical Bills

One of the easiest ways to keep medical bills from impacting your credit score is to pay your bills when you receive them. If you can't afford to make payment in full, contact the hospital's billing department to make payment arrangements.

Even if you have health insurance, don't assume that your insurance company will always handle bills in a timely manner. If you receive a bill that should have been covered by insurance, contact your insurance company to find out why the bill wasn't paid. It could have been a simple oversight by hospital billing or the insurance claims department. Insurance companies often cover only a certain percentage of medical bills, so you might be responsible for some portion of medical debt after the insurance company has covered its part.

To find out whether you have unpaid medical bills out there, check your credit report.

To be doubly safe, you might contact the hospital or physician's billing department to check the status of your account, especially if you've received any medical services within the past year. Sometimes, just because the medical bills aren't on your credit report doesn't mean they don't exist. By contacting the medical provider, you'll know for sure whether you have outstanding medical bills that could end up hurting your credit.

For more information contact Mark Bustamonte at 954-707-2932 or visit

Financial Education Services (FES) and FES Protection Plan

There are 5 things that can affect your FICO Scores

1) Payment History. This has the biggest effect on your FICO scores. It accounts for 35% of your score. Paying a debt n time and in full has a positive impact. Late payments, judgments and charge-offs have a negative effect. You should know that if you make a late payment your FICO score WILL go down.

2) Outstanding Balances. This has a 30% effect on your credit scores. The debt ratio or outstanding balance to available credit is important. Keeping that below 50% will help you credit scores. Keeping it below 30% will raise you credit score even more.

3) Length of credit has a 15% impact on your FICO scores. The longer the time that a credit line is open will help your credit scores go up. It is never a good idea to close an account today. Opening new credit cards will decrease the average length, and therefore hurt your credit score.

4) Type of Credit. This has a 10% impact on your credit score. It's good to have a mix of installment loans like car and furniture loans, home loans, and credit card loans.

5) Inquiries. Inquiries have a 10% impact on your credit score. Hard inquiries for credit have a negative impact on your credit score. Each hard inquiry can cost 2 - 50 points on a credit score. Inquiries stay on your credit for up to one year even though you may not see them after 90 days..

Financial Empowerment Network Team and Prime Financial Credit Services

New Rules Issued by the Federal Reserve and Federal Trade Commission about Consumer Credit

Consumers taking out auto, home mortgages, credit cards and other types of loans will be notified when they are offtered an interest rate that is higher than is customary due to their poor credit histories. This is under new rules issued on 12/23/09 than become effective on Jan., 1 2011.

Lenders traditionally offer borrowers rate and terms based on their credit reports, which reflects the borrowers' ability to repay the loans. This is called "risk-based pricing."

The new rules set forth by the Federal Reserve and the Federal Trade Commission entitle borrowers who receive pricing notifications to also be entitled to a free credit report to check the accuracy of their credit report.

Borrowers will be notified about the higher interest rates "after the terms of credit have been set, but before the consumer becomes contractually obligated on the credit transaction," according to the rules.

This notification is required when the lender - based on the borrowers' credit report - offers credit terms "that are materially less favorable" than the terms offered or provided to other consumers, the regulators said.

Lenders will not have to provide this notification if they offer borrowers a free credit score, Federal Reserve attorneys explained. A consumer must normally pay a fee - between $8-$11 - to obtain their credit scores, the attorney said. Credit reports don't contain credit scores, they said.

This provision, announced yesterday, is aimed at helping borrowers better understand the rates they are being offered on particular loans and to get more information about their credit reports.

Keith Dienstl is a member of the Financial Empowerment Network Team and Prime Financial Credit Services you can also visit Credit Repair Services for more information on Keith Dienstl.

Mistakes and Other Inaccurate Information

Mistakes and other inaccurate information on your credit report aren't your fault and in a perfect world, wouldn't affect you.

Our world is not perfect, however, and while you may not be responsible for some or all of the questionable items on your credit report, you are probably being held accountable for them.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act gives you the right to contact credit bureaus directly and dispute items on your credit reports. Just as in a court of law, you have the right to plead "not guilty" to questionable information on your credit reports, and leave the burden of proof to the credit bureaus.

You can dispute any and all items on your credit reports that you feel classify as inaccurate, unverifiable, or misleading. If the bureaus can not verify that the information on your reports is indeed correct, then those items must be deleted.

I am a member of Financial Empowerment Network Team and Prime Financial Credit Services

Your Credit Score Is Yours to Control

Are you confused by credit, and how to create a better credit score? Don't feel bad, many consumers and business people find it hard to understand why their credit score is low. They pay their bills. And when they are a little late on a payment, they pay extra fees to the Lenders to make up for that. The Lenders enjoy great profits, and yet, the Borrower gets penalized more. Is it fair? I say NO! Enough! It's time for us to take control of our credit scores, and get them to reflect accurately, what kind of people we really are. In fact, the United States government agrees. Toady, there are laws to protect us, and allow us to take back control of our credit histories and credit scores.

Use these laws to make sure you aren't forced to pay more for auto loans, credit cards, mortgages, insurance and utilities. Besides costing you more money in monthly bills, we've been hearing more about people who get job offers that are later taken back, because of a "bad" credit score, a result of having been out of work for a year or longer. They didn't use credit to support a luxurious lifestyle. Ironically, they are penalized by taking away the very thing that they need to get back on their feet and to get back to paying their bills. Is it just me, or does it seem ridiculous to you as well? Credit reporting agencies, and Lenders, seem to believe that it's their right to penalize consumers to any level that they choose. The US government says it isn't their right. It is their right to report late payments and defaults on payment agreements, to the extent that they report it accurately. Is the information on your credit report accurate?

Frits Tessers is a member of the Financial Empowerment Network Team and Prime Financial Credit Services
you can also visit Personal Coaching for more information on Frits Tessers.