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Do I Need a Lawyer to Fight Medical Bill Debt?

George Simons | October 19, 2022

George Simons
Co-Founder of SoloSuit
George Simons, JD/MBA

George Simons is the co-founder and CEO of SoloSuit. He has helped Americans protect over $1 billion from predatory debt lawsuits. George graduated from BYU Law school in 2020 with a JD-MBA. In his spare time, George likes to cook, because he likes to eat.

Edited by Hannah Locklear

Hannah Locklear
Editor at SoloSuit
Hannah Locklear, BA

Hannah Locklear is SoloSuit’s Marketing and Impact Manager. With an educational background in Linguistics, Spanish, and International Development from Brigham Young University, Hannah has also worked as a legal support specialist for several years.

Summary: Are you being sued for medical debt? Find out if you need a lawyer to fight medical bill debt.

Although it's better to have a competent lawyer help you fight a medical bill debt, given how complicated they can be, you don't necessarily need one. Here's everything you need to know if you've been sued for a medical bill debt.

How medical bill debt affects your credit score

Many Americans deal with medical debts every year. However, failing to make the minimum payments on time means the debt could be transferred to a medical collection agency.

Medical debts are handled differently compared to other types of debts. As a result, they may not impact heavily on your credit score but can still be recorded on your credit report for seven years if left unpaid for a long time. Such a record can make it more difficult for you to obtain credit in the future.

The good news is that medical bills have a grace period of 180 days before being reported on your credit report and will be erased from the report once settled. This policy has been implemented to allow consumers more time to settle the bill.

Protect your credit score by responding to debt collectors with SoloSuit.

What to do about a medical debt lawsuit

When you receive the court summons and complaints, the first thing you need to do is plan your response before its deadline expires. If you aren't sure how to respond to the complaint, you may seek advice from a medical bill lawyer to help you prepare your defenses and save you money in return.

Begin by gathering evidence of payments you've made and compare with the complaint to determine if the debt amount and other details are accurate. If there's an error, you can dispute the complaint by directly writing to the collection agency and the credit bureau responsible for the error. However, this notice may halt the suit only for some time until the dispute is settled.

If there's no dispute, you need to take the following steps to respond to the summons and complaints:

  • prepare your Answer document;
  • assert your affirmative defenses;
  • file the response with the relevant court;
  • serve the plaintiff with a copy of the response.

Use SoloSuit to respond to a debt collection lawsuit in 15 minutes.

How SoloSuit can help you fight medical bill debt collectors

Using SoloSuit makes this process much more straightforward. The application generates the Answer document correctly and at no cost to you. The web application also recommends having the response reviewed by an attorney at a small fee to increase the chances of winning the suit. If you choose to have the response reviewed by an attorney, SoloSuit has a team of attorneys ready to help.

Additionally, SoloSuit can help you file the response once it's complete to save you time. The application will file the response to the court handling the lawsuit and a copy delivered to the plaintiff.

SoloSuit allows you to plan your finances better and get out of debt as soon as possible. Filing an Answer correctly can help you resolve the debt amicably and take control of your finances. On the other hand, ignoring such a suit gives the collector more power to collect what you owe from the little you have, leaving you in a worse financial situation.

What is SoloSuit?

SoloSuit makes it easy to respond to a debt collection lawsuit.

How it works: SoloSuit is a step-by-step web-app that asks you all the necessary questions to complete your answer. Upon completion, you can either print the completed forms and mail in the hard copies to the courts or you can pay SoloSuit to file it for you and to have an attorney review the document.

Respond with SoloSuit

"First time getting sued by a debt collector and I was searching all over YouTube and ran across SoloSuit, so I decided to buy their services with their attorney reviewed documentation which cost extra but it was well worth it! SoloSuit sent the documentation to the parties and to the court which saved me time from having to go to court and in a few weeks the case got dismissed!" – James


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