Delinquent payments remain on a credit report for 7 years and unpaid medical bills are no exception.

Unpaid medical bills are usually reported to the credit bureaus. Once reported they stay of the report for 7 years from the date reported. If you do not pay the bill, many collection agencies will report the delinquency again, resulting in another 7 year period of time. Now, lets take a look at some options. Are you able to pay anything toward the bill? Do you have other collection accounts? If so what is the total of your out standing debt? Take all of this into consideration and ask yourself, how long will it take me to recover from my present situtation? If this is the only collection account you have and you are making all of your other payments on time, perhaps you can make monthly payments. By doing so, you can require that the collection agency update their reporting to indicate, Collection, now paying. Depending on the amount of the bill, and if you have savings, you could also contact the collection agency to "Settle," the account. When you settle an account, they often deduct the collection charges and reduce the principal balance. Just keep in mind that you have options. If you have had a catastropic event, (medical disability and or unemployment, death of the primary wage earner) perhaps you should contact an Attorney to discuss options available to you under the bankruptcy laws. While bankruptcies stay on your credit report from 7-10 years, if you can document a catastropic event (see above), that lead to your filing BK, and you re-establish you credit and make consistent on time payments for at least a year, you may very well find that many lenders will give you another chance. Good Luck.

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Medical collections most certainly apprear on your credit history. As with any other defualted debt, they will remain on your credit report for 10 years. If a collection agency sells the debt to another collector, the new collector can "re-age" the debt and start the clock ticking again. As a mortgage lender and Realtor, I have had clients wanting to pay off their old debts in order to purchase a house. Even medical debts that DO NOT appear on your credit history may come back to haunt you. In one case, a customer had $800 in old medical debts on his credit. When he went to pay them off, the collection agent discovered another $2500 in debts that had recently been re-aged. The customer had to settle ALL of his debts in order to qualify for the loan. SO he did, and has a beautiful home to show for it. For more on the cause and effect on credit, go to my credit website ... http://MechanixOfCredit.info/

1) medical debt will stay for 7 years 2) it is illegal to extend the time of the debt when a collection agency buys, or is sent the debt 3)medical debt shows as medical debt, bankruptcy shows as bankruptcy. You can explain medical debt better than a bankruptcy. Medical debt = 7 years vs. Bankruptcy = 10 years. 4)if you pay a collection agency, then STOP paying them, you get a NEW delinquency date. Then it is from the NEW date to the 7 years. (that is how debt collectors keeps extending the limit, legally). 5)debt collectors can say whatever they want (as long as it is not extortion) to get you to pay, including the LIE that since they took it over it is a NEW delinquency date. NOT TRUE. 6) If you want to settle the bill, contact the ORIGINAL debtor and see if they will work with you. Avoid working with the debt collection agency at all costs.