Will paying a bill in collections help my credit score? Need advice please...

Your best bet is to go to the hospital directly and ask to pay it through them, then ask them to have it pulled back from the collections agency.

I've had one or two things go to collections over the years that were either an oversight or I didn't know about, and both times the original debtor had no problem at all with me paying them direct. It saves them a fee from the collection agency as well.

My credit hasn't suffered at all.

I have paid many things in collections. I called the credit report company myself. They told me as long as the bill is paid in three payments or less it would not hurt my acct. There for I waited till I had a lot of money and paid off all my credit cards in one shot. Pay the bill and let it be over with. I agree with the 1st poster.. Pay it in person if at all possible. I owe a bank and will be paying it off to them directly..

It depends who is reporting it:

Is it the hospital reporting it or have they sold the rights to their account? If they're the ones reporting it they should be able to tell you if they will delete the account once you pay in full or if it will be updated to show it as paid in full.

You should talk to the credit bureaus about knowing how it will effect your score. You should contact directly who is reporting it to find out the details. Generally a paid account is better than unpaid.

Pablo

From my understanding, any activity on the account starts the seven year process from that point. So, basically if you have something on your credit report from 2001, it will be scheduled to fall off in 2008 because bad credit stays with you for seven years.

However, if you have any activity on the account once it hits your report, that resets that seven year process from the first new activity. So, if you start paying on that dept in 2007, you're stuck with it on your credit report until 2014, regardless of whether or not you pay it off.

So, I guess what you want to look at is how old it is. If if just showed up on your report and it will be there for a long time, regardless of whether or not you pay it, it will look better if you pay it. But, if it's about to drop, I'd say within the next year, it's pointless to pay it.

I would check with someone more professional than me to be sure of this, but this has always been my understanding.

I have a LOT of old medical bills in collections right now. I know my credit score is disgusting! Last I looked at my own credit report, it showed good reports for anything that had payments made on it, and bad reports for things that had not had any payments. Right now I am making $25 payments every week to my old bills. It is not much, but it is all I can really afford and it's better than nothing.
It's crazy how much something so silly can mess us up, isn't it? Like medical bills, I begin to wonder why we bother paying so much for insurance.

Paying the bill won't hurt you, but not paying it might. When applying for a loan, creditors don't look just at your score, they also look to see if there is anything not paid for. It's better to pay it off than to leave it unpaid. It will help you in the long run. Trust me, I know.

Well, you have had a lot of answers here, and I think you can pay the collection agency but also get an ID number on it to send to the credit bureau to get it removed.

It sounds like ladyjarhead answered your question for you. I think that if this agency is being unfair with you you can also contact the better business bureau. They will also help with mediating between you and the agency in question.