Medical Debt Relief
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Unpaid medical debt is a big problem for many Oregonians. If you don’t have health insurance or your insurance doesn’t cover all of the medical expenses it can be a big problem for you! In the event of an emergency or serious health condition, you are likely to find yourself being pursued and even sued by one of the many collection agencies that specialize in collecting medical bills. What are your options when you have big medical bills that you just can’t afford to pay? Basically, your choices come down to trying to settle or filing bankruptcy. Your first step should be contacting an expert medical debt attorney in handling such situations..
Understanding Medical Debt
A visit to the emergency room can cost thousands of dollars. A surgery for a life threatening medical condition, tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Uninsured and underinsured Oregonians face collection lawsuits for medical bills all of the time. A study in 2019 found that 60% of people filing bankruptcy in the United States had unpaid medical bills. About 9% of Americans owe medical debt including about 4% who owe over $2,000.00 and almost 2% who owe over $10,000.00. If you already are living paycheck to paycheck or have a lot of credit card debt, unexpected medical debts can quickly become unmanageable. Even if you have some savings, you can be overwhelmed by the demands for payment.
The Consequences of Unmanaged Medical Debt
If you have medical debts, it is important to deal with them as quickly as possible. It may be possible to arrange payments early on that might not be available once the debt is assigned to a collection agency. Out of control medical bills can quickly have a negative effect on your credit score. Legal consequences like lawsuits and garnishment of wages or bank accounts can rapidly follow when a collection agency gets involved and, of course, they can have a devastating impact on your financial stability.
How Can a Medical Debt Attorney Help?
A medical debt attorney can be very helpful in dealing with this kind of crisis. Experienced medical debt attorneys are used to negotiating with collection agencies or handling medical debt as part of a bankruptcy and can help you determine your options. Of course, the first thing that a good medical debt attorney will recommend is that you get health insurance right away so that you do not end up in the same situation again. For many Oregonians, this means the Oregon Health Plan. If you are working, you may be able to get insurance through your employer. For many people, these options are too expensive because they are already dealing with high credit card balances or other debts. Sometimes the attorney will recommend bankruptcy to get rid of the other debt so that you can afford the health insurance you really need to have.
Debt Negotiation and Settlement
A medical debt attorney can help you try to settle before legal action is taken. If manageable payments can be arranged, litigation can be avoided. But if it gets to the point of garnishment of your wages, a lump sum settlement or bankruptcy may be the only way to resolve the debt. Sometimes just the threat of bankruptcy helps in the settlement process.
As part of negotiating and settling medical debt, an attorney can potentially reduce the debt or set up manageable payment plans. Unfortunately, usually, it is possible to reduce the debt only as part of a lump sum settlement.
Bankruptcy Filing
But when the collection process has gotten to the point of a lawsuit and you can’t afford a lump sum payment or monthly payments that the collection agency will accept, filing for bankruptcy may be required to stop the lawsuit or garnishment. Any of the different types of consumer bankruptcy (Chapter 7, Chapter 13) can alleviate medical debt by stopping all collection efforts immediately and ultimately discharging all of it. Both a Chapter 7 and a
Chapter 13 may allow you to recover money that was garnished in the 90 days before your case was filed.
Why Choose Our Medical Debt Attorney Services?
We do things differently than other debt negotiation and bankruptcy attorneys. We pride ourselves on being available, responsive, honest, and hardworking. We have had a lot of success helping people just like you settle medical bills or discharge them in bankruptcy. We understand how a lawsuit or garnishment can leave you unable to cover basic expenses and know how important it is to get help right away.
Our Approach
We offer a free consultation so you can learn how we might be able to help you. You can employ us to try to settle a medical bill and we’ll agree to a cap on the fees that will be incurred trying to settle. We have a unique approach to handling medical debt cases and you can count on our empathy and professionalism. Our years of experience in negotiations can be put to work for you.
Our Success Stories
We have had tremendous success in resolving, discharging, or settling all kinds of debt including medical debt. We have negotiated payment arrangements and lump sum settlements for all kinds of clients. We have removed judgment liens for medical bills from clients’ homes when the amount of the bills infringed on their homestead exemption.
We have resolved complicated cases where medical bills that had been turned into judgment liens on our client’s homes by negotiating arrangements to allow them to remain in their house for the rest of their lives.
And, of course, we have discharged hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions of dollars of medical debts in bankruptcy cases.
Get Started with a Medical Debt Attorney Today
If you are facing collection harassment, lawsuits, garnishments or judgments for medical bills, you don’t have to go face them all alone. Call us to find out how we can help. We may be able to negotiate a payment arrangement or a lump sum payment that you can afford.
Facing garnishment of your wages is daunting.
Contact us for a free consultation today to find out what we can do to help you with your medical debt. We treat everyone with dignity and respect and with our years of experience, we’ll have many options available to give you the relief and protection you need from the aggressive collection of medical bills.
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Behrends, Carusone, PC, Bankruptcy Attorneys
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