You Should Know

Where are you going where you aren't required to sign a financial disclosure allowing for the relevant information to be sent to whatever service is used to collect payment? I haven't been to a single doctor's office, urgent care, or hospital in several years that didn't require me signing a form consenting to that.

Collections also doesn't need to provide an itemized list of every detail you owe for, not in the way you're implying at least. They're not about to say "you owe the hospital $20 for an aspirin." They can, however, say "you owe [this hospital] [this dollar amount] for services on [this date]." The itemization they're required to give is the current debt, any fees and interest, and any payments or credits made on it. That's straight from CFPB.

This is absolutely false information. Third party business associates are considered covered entities under the Privacy Rule. The hospital signs a contract with a collection agency and thus that business can now access your health information as an institute of the hospital. You don't need to sign away your rights if it is considered an essential activity of the hospital, which billing and payments are. Also, it's HIPAA.

And you aren't being treated anywhere without signing a privacy HIPAA notice.

Is this actually true or just something that is technically but not effectively true?

This is a great example why seeing downvoted is an important feature, people just upvote without fact checking

This is false. It can be sent to collections lol. When it's sent to collections, it is not itemized. The collections agency that "purchases" your collections does not receive an itemized list of things you're charged for, they just receive an amount.

Source: Personal experience. Lol

As everyone else has confirmed - the title is incorrect, medical debt absolutely can be sent to collections

What OP likely misunderstood is the practice of validating a debt - this is not a loophole to get out of paying your debts, this is a basic legal protection to prevent malicious collection agencies from fraudulently pursuing invalid debts. When you get a bill in the mail from a collections agency you can request that the agency validate the debt, and they will have to formally provide the following information before you are required to repay the debt:

• [collection agency's] name and mailing address
• the name of the creditor you owe it to
• how much money you owe, written out to include interest, fees, payments, and credits
• what to do if you don’t think it’s your debt
• your debt collection rights, including your right to get information about the original creditor if you ask for it within 30 days of getting validation information from the collector

A collector has to give you “validation information” about the debt either when they first communicate with you or within five days of the first contact. The collector has to include the following

Federal Trade Commission - Consumer Advice - Debt collection FAQ

Could you please add a “Why YSK:”? It’s rule #2. It's also helpful for readability, and informs readers about the importance of the content. Thank you. :)

This is why most hospitals and such have their own internal collections.