Declining a debt settlement offer

My husband and I were offered a debt settlement on one of our medical bills. We are making regular monthly payments so the offer came as a surprise. The bill will be paid in full in three more payments (two after this month.) The debt settlement offer was tempting but we decided to turn it down.

Piggy bank

We took two actions before making this decision.

The first thing that we did was check the bank account. My husband went back through the records to be sure that the payments had gone out as scheduled. Then, he double checked to be sure that the account number matched the one on our bill. Before calling about the debt settlement, we made sure that the checks were cashed by the right entity.

The medical bill information matched and everything looked good on our end. I decided to do some online research about debt settlement before calling the medical billing company. (By the way, credit card companies sometimes do this too.)

It turns out that accepting the offer can potentially hurt my credit rating. The news did not make me happy. I found out that the bill can be reported as a "charged-off, settled" or as "paid, settled". These words just do not carry the same weight as "Paid in full".

After looking over the debt settlement offer on our account and doing the research, it was time to call the medical billing company. According to the representative our account was in good standing. I was told that the offers go out automatically. She gave us the green light on continued monthly payments and said the bill would be listed as "paid in full". Ending the call was a relief.

No one knows what the future will hold. Declining the debt settlement offer seems like the right decision for us. Right now, that's good enough for me. Since the medical billing company is okay with it, then it must be the right decision for them too.