What can I do about my bill in collections?

I have two medical bills from the same situation. One is from the hospital (started at $2,300) and one is from the EMS (started at $600). For the past year, I’ve had a payment plan set up with both companies for $25/month. I’ve been really consistent all year with these payments.

However, I went without a job for a few months and missed two payments with both places (September and October of this year). After I got my job and money, I’ve made November and December payments on time. When I called to pay, neither company informed me of anything fishy with my accounts.

I received bills from these places during those two months, but none warned me that I’d be sent to collections. Nor did any collections agencies contact me. However, today I got a call from the collections agency trying to collect my debt for the hospital bill.

I told them I had set up a payment plan, so they said they’d contact the hospital and let me know. I decided to contact them myself and they said they can’t do anything because I’ve been in collections since October. If that’s true, how did they take two payments since then? And why wasn’t I informed until now. The collections agency told me they have 30 days to put my bill on my credit, but it hasn’t been done yet. If it was in collections since October…it just doesn’t add up.

I called the EMS company to see if they were sending me to collections too. They said I’m scheduled to be sent, but they let me leave a message with the supervisor to see if I can be deferred since I was so consistent with my payments before. Then, I called the hospital back and left a message with a supervisor there. I’m not waiting to hear back from both of these people as well as the collections agency.

I really don’t want this to show up on my credit and I don’t want to have to pay interest because it was sent to collections. I also really can’t afford for it to be taken out of my taes. I can’t afford the $1900 left on the bill, that’s impossible. I was all ready to make my January payments and now this hits me. I don’t even know how collections agencies work.

Anyone’s help would be appreciated. Explain collections to me and/or tell me if there’s anything I can do about thise so it doesn’t ruin my credit or take away my income tax refund.