Many people are confused when they get a copy of their credit report and see a “Medical Payment Data” bill. This is seen when someone gets your credit report from an involved third party, such as applying for a mortgage or at the car dealership. This would not be proven if you were to obtain your report on your own without a third party.

When you see Medical Payment Data on your report, you will not contact them. Because there really are no “they” to contact, as it is just a term denoting a medical bill on your credit report.

This is done to protect the name of the person requesting the credit report, due to federal privacy laws. Your next step would be to call the credit bureaus that list the collections on the medical report. When you call the credit reporting agencies, they can tell you who the current owner of the debt is.

Once you receive the information from the credit reporting agencies, you can contact the medical collection agency directly. This is because they own the debt and the hospital is out of the picture now. It is not completely known how the credit bureaus treat different debts, but it is believed that hospital debt is not that bad on your credit report.

Certainly, if you are working with someone who reviews your application, such as at a small bank or car dealership, you may have some leeway to have medical payment data on your credit report. This is because it can show you had extenuating circumstances. This is especially helpful when there are no other collections in the report.

If you think this is damaging your credit profile, you can work with the collection agency to remove the poor rating from your report. Generally, the longer it has been unpaid, the worse it gets, up to a point. When a collection is a few years old it has already done its damage. If you can pay the collection agency right after they get it from the hospital, you may be able to prevent it from being included on your credit report.

The older the debt, the more, the less you have to offer to pay off the debt. A debt that is several years old can only offer a fraction of the original bill. If the debt is new, you can pay the full amount or almost it. The best thing to do is to completely remove the ding, this would help your score the most. If not, you could at least mark the invoice on your report as paid in full.