Medical Bills Stacking Up In Texas? Well, You Aren’t Alone.

One of the biggest stressors in life is bills and money, would you agree? I know that if things are getting tight financially at home, tempers flare a bit more than usual and the stress sets in.

Then to top it off, that bill you've been pushing off for a couple of months shows up in the mail and you worry that you'll have no way to pay it.

We've all been there, and we have a tendency to prioritize which ones get paid first when those times arise. One of the bills that gets pushed aside the most? Medical bills believe it or not. A lot of people have medical debt, and because it's typically for services rendered already, they get set aside to get paid when there is the extra money to do so.

In Texas, it's a very large problem. A new report has shown that Texas has the 5th highest rate of medical debt in the entire country, and a lot of that debt is sitting with collection agencies because they didn't get paid directly to the provider in a decent amount of time.

A couple of big counties in the panhandle seem to be struggling the most with medical debt as both Hutchinson and Potter landed inside the top 15 counties of Texas with their medical bills being placed with collection agencies.

Hutchinson County ranked eighth in the state of Texas with 33.8% of medical bills being sent off to third parties to collect. It's also ranked 38th in the entire country when it comes to that. Not good.

Potter County checks in at 14th in the state and 49th in the country with 32.9% of medical debt finding its way to a third party collector.

So why is it medical debt that seems to be the one that gets passed up by so many people? Well, I know at one point I heard medical debt can't affect your credit, so people have a tendency to let that be the one that floats. However, if it gets sent to a collection agency, it CAN hurt your credit score.