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VERIFY: Can hospital bills appear on your credit report?

Our Verify researchers are answering a question from a viewer that could affect a lot of us regarding medical debt.

Lots of misinformation circulates online, but that's where our Verify team steps in to always get you the truth.

Like this next important question a viewer asked us: Do hospital bills show up on your credit report?

Our researchers got to work and contacted credit reporting agency Experian and the National Consumer Law Center.

Experian says your medical payment history is not part of your credit report. 

However, if a medical bill is unpaid it CAN be sold to a third party debt collection agency and the collection agency can then report that debt… affecting your credit score.

The National Consumer Law Center says if collection agencies report the debt to one of the credit reporting companies, they usually will not include the debt their reporting unless it is over six months old. 

So we verified yes, medical debt can affect your credit.

But here's the good news, the big three credit agencies use a new formula which doesn't weigh medical debt as heavily as it used to. So the bottom line is, your credit score does not take as big of a hit.

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