My credit score is on the lower end of poor. I'm 21 years old and have paid my bills on time and then I had about $5,000 in medical debt that Medicaid ended up paying for, but the process took forever, in the mean time, I was sent to collections

This reminds me of the time, I was penalized for a delinquency on my student loan because the bill was sent to the wrong address. As I learned then, it was still my fault because that's how debt works. It was my responsibility to take care of debt with the school regardless of whom or what got in the way of that.

I suspect this is similar in your case. You were the primary party responsible for payment to the hospital. Remember that you entered into the agreement with the hospital and not Medicaid. As such, they have every right to send you to collections if payments were not made as stipulated in the agreement.

The best thing to do now is to call both the collections company and the original creditor to explain the situation. They are under no obligation to remove the inquiries but sometimes you will get a compassionate person who will understand.

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