Get Gephardt helps Marysvale couple facing collections for paid hospital bills.

MARYSVALE, Piute County — Constant calls from debt collectors have become routine for Janeen and Calvin Leischer.

"Every time I tell them – I say – 'It's been paid for. I paid this,'" said Calvin. "They said, 'Well, that's not our problem. You need to fix it.'"

What needs to be fixed, says Calvin, are two hospital bills. Last August, Janeen went under the knife at Sevier Valley Hospital in Richfield. Her bill for that was $600 dollars. A follow-up procedure generated a $6,700 bill, for $7,300 altogether.

To pay those bills, the Leischers' church sent two checks to Intermountain Health, the owners of Sevier Valley Hospital. Both checks were cashed and both checks cleared. But the debt collection calls keep coming.

"I've called hundreds of times trying to get a hold of the right people to talk to and we have no answers," Calvin Leishcher said.

Now, you might have heard medical debt won't affect your credit score. That's true, if the amount of the debt in collections is under $500. But medical bills over $500 that are sold to collections will drag your credit down. Way down.

"I work so hard to get it good," Janeen remarked.

So, the KSL Investigators reached out to Intermountain Health's public relations team and asked what happened with the payments for Janeen's surgeries.

In an email, their spokesperson told us that "it appears that payments sent from Janeen's church on her behalf were mailed without payment coupons." Consequently, they got "posted to the wrong account and created some confusion." They "have since located the payments," which are now properly credited to Janeen Leishcher's account.

"Get the creditors off of our butts!" Calvin Leischer had expressed.

And just like that, his wish was granted – no more collections calls.

Intermountain Health says including payment coupons or stubs from your bill when mailing in payments goes a long way in avoiding mix-ups like this.

Also, the three major credit bureaus will wait a full year before they'll add unpaid medical debt that is in collections to your credit report.

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