Maybe you were recently contacted by a collection agency concerning an alleged failure to pay a medical bill.
That would hardly qualify you as being exceptional in any negative way. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention states that a whopping 54 million Americans — which obviously encompasses quite a few Floridians — had a hard time attending to one or more medical debts last year.
Among those people, it is estimated that about 41 million of them — about 20 percent of all adults in the United States — received an unwanted contact from a collection agency.
That figure is likely to be deemed quite stunning by most people, and in fact it does reveal in a most stark way how serious a problem medical debt is in the United States. Medical bills piling up have been cited by millions of Americans as the primary catalyst that led them to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
That is not the preordained outcome in most cases, but many debt experts say it is a good strategy to employ in many instances. One consumer advocate calls it a good-sense and even compelling option in many cases, since medical debt can be erased through filing and a heavily strapped debtor — some people are squared off against hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical debt — can get a chance for a fresh financial start.
And here’s a benefit of bankruptcy that many people are likely unaware of: Credit scores typically begin improving quickly — sometimes even immediately — owing to debt being erased.
A proven Florida debt relief attorney can answer questions concerning medical debt and provide strong representation to any person seeking bankruptcy protection.
Source: Los Angeles Times, “How to stop medical bills from going to a collection agency,” Lisa Zamosky, July 5, 2013
