Also there have been laws recently which overhaul if and how medical billing can affect your credit report. If a medical collection does end up on your credit report, it must be completely removed and your credit score completely restored as soon as it's paid off. So there's basically no reason to ever pay any medical bill unless it's in collections. My strategy is to ignore any and all medical bills and use my credit report as a "master medical bill" and only pay those in collections (and even then, only the ones which are "fair and square," so to speak).