I got a surprise collections notice of a copay I was told I didn't need to pay over two years ago. How do I keep this from hurting my credit?

Not much you can do except pay it.

Paying it won’t likely fix it. Plus, it was supposed to be zeroed out. If it shows up on your credit you can write the credit bureau and argue the case. For $40 if everything is stellar, it won’t ding your credit much, but collections might harass you horribly.

For now, I would call the original person you talked to who said they were wiping out the debt. Be nice, and see if you can get them to “help” you with the situation. If they are uncooperative as to speak to a supervisor. Be nice. If they won’t help tell them you will be writing the better business bureau for their mistake. See if they will fix it at that point. If not, tell them your credit is perfect, you pay your debts, and the only reason you didn’t pay this was because you were told you didn’t have to, and you never received any further notification from them that the bill was aging. If you had, you would have known their billing still saw it as an uncollected debt. See if they will help now.

If not, tell them if you get harassed by collections you will call their office every time collections calls you. That you will show up at their office every third time collections calls you.

Call the billing company and try to head the bill off before it goes to collections and pay it. Or go there directly with credit card/check book/cash in hand, and pay it.

First, of course, settle the bill however you have to do that so that it will now be reported as paid in full.

Next, obtain ONE free credit report from any one of the three major credit reporting agencies: TransUnion, Equifax or Experian. (You should look up the websites yourself so that you’re sure of getting the right address, and not misdirected to spam or malware. They are easy to find. And go to one of those agencies, not something that “looks like” one of them or offers “just as good”, because there is no one else just as good as those three.)

The reporting agencies are required to provide you with one free credit report per year, so don’t sign up for anything that requires a credit card or any kind of fee or add-on. (And for now, limit your request to ONE of those agencies, because you may want to follow up with another one in another few months.)

If the notice of collections has hit the report, then it will show, and should show pretty clearly when you analyze the report. Send a detailed explanation of the mishap to the reporting agency who has provided you the credit report.

Since it’s only a $40 bill and you will have paid it anyway (though if you request the credit report immediately after payment, that won’t show up), then your explanation, which is perfectly reasonable and understandable, will settle the concern of any lender who happens to notice that red flag.

In a few months, you may want to repeat the free credit report request with a different agency (one of the two remaining) to ensure that the bill is shown as paid, and to see if you also need to provide the explanation to them, as well. (I think that the explanation you provide to one agency is shared among all of them, but I’m not certain about that.)

If you’re getting ready to buy a house soon, then keep these sites in mind, and you can monitor your credit score and history – for free – two or three times a year.

Otherwise, if your credit is in good standing anyway, it’s doubtful whether that would even register.

I might have misread. If it isn’t in collections yet, go down to the doctors office, or wherever you had your appointment, in person and straighten it out. Once in collections the nightmare begins.

Call right away, tell them that you were told at the time of the visit that the copay probably wouldn’t apply, and that you never received confirmation that you had to pay it. Yes, this is shading the truth a bit. But if you honestly believed that you would receive a second bill, then it is only a slight shading. Tell them that of course you are willing to pay the bill immediately, and ask whether or not that will keep it from being sent to collections. If they say “yes,” then everything is fine. It’s over the moment you pay them.

If they say “no,” ask to talk to someone higher up until you get someone who says “yes.” If the bill has already been sent to collections, tell them that you will pay immediately after they call up the collections agency and tell them that they were in error. They want the money, and you are willing to pay it. But once the money is out of your hands and in theirs, you have no leverage. Every bit of power you have rests in the fact that they want the money and you are willing to pay immediately—but only if they make things right.

Be polite but firm. Never waver from the position that they made a mistake, but that you are absolutely willing to pay what you owe them so long as they do nothing to unjustly affect your credit. Do not at any point even imply that you might withhold payment. Make it very clear that you have every intention of paying, but no more than what you owe and not until you are paying them rather than some collections agency.

Take everyone’s advice who is telling you to call the clinic. If it hasn’t gone to collections yet, they’ll let you pay it in full and they won’t send it to collections at all.

If it’s already been sent to collections, there’s nothing you can do to avoid it dinging your credit. In that case, you would call the agency, pay it, and they would report that it was paid in full, but it would still show up on your credit report for a while.

@DrasticDreamer Technically, you can do something about it after the bill gets sent to collections. It’s not easy, though. You have to get the company that sold them the debt to withdraw it. I managed to get this done once—though I had the distinct advantage of having never actually done business with the company that was claiming I owed them money. (And even then it took a full year to resolve the issue.)

@SavoirFaire I wish that had been the case for me. When I got really sick, I got a lot of medical debt and it was impossible to get anyone to work with me.

If you want to bust the collection agency’s chops, tell them you are going to pay the hospital directly. Then pay the hospital directly. The collection agent will likely be very upset being out of the loop, but you have the right to pay the hospital if you want to.

A small amount of 40 dollars isn’t going to do anything big unless it is one of many. Especially in the case of medical bills. Also be sure to talk to your insurance to make sure this bill wasn’t already paid for. Most blood work is paid for by insurances. It could be a clerical error on their part. My husband once got a bill for a guy with the same name as his. The guy was 2 years older and only lived a few miles from us but they had the same doctor, different SSIN, and insurance and ID. But when they notified us it was a few months later.
Now he did have one that went to collections that he forgot to pay and he paid it as soon as collections called. It only shaved a few points. No big deal but he has excellent credit. Banks are more concerned with the long picture. One what is your credit score? Two do you have a long history or excellent credit? Do you pay all your monthly bills on time? Will a loan over extend your budget? Do you have a steady job? How long have you had it? How many large loans have you paid back? Can you put down a decent down payment if it looks like the loan may be too large? They know that sometimes a small unusual bill like medical can be over looked and thought as paid by the insurance company.
Pay them the 40 and look up your credit score. And if it hasn’t gone to collections than pay the medical facility and be sure to get a receipt.