I live in North Dakota. We settled on a medical bill, through a collection agency, 10 months ago. The hospital gave the collection agency the terms of the settlement and we agreed. We took out a loan at 25% interest in order to meet those agreements so the amount we will end up paying will be pretty much the same as the original bill. By doing this however, we were able to avoid being reported to the credit bureau. I asked for (and received) a statement from the hospital showing the amount we paid so I do not believe they had "sold" the bill to that agency. I just received a bill from a different collection agency stating we owe an amount equal to what the difference was. I am going to contact the hospital to attempt to straighten this out but I do not plan on paying. The only mistake we have made was not knowing that this maybe should have been claimed on our taxes. I just want to know what steps I should take if the hospital claims we still owe them. By the way, we did not get one bill or piece of correspondence from the hospital after we paid 10 months ago. I would think that if they showed it as an "outstanding balance" they would have contacted us between then and now.

