I've recently ran across a lot of posts on this site about hospitals and other places of employment running credit checks on potential new hires. This scares me to death because I have bad credit. I probably have about ~ $1,100 in unpaid medical bills. I am sure that this looks REALLY BAD to a health care organization and it scares me to death. Obviously I never wanted to have bad credit, but for the past two years I've essentially been forced to chose between keeping the lights on and paying a $300 medical bill. Before anyone flames me or tells me what an irresponsible person I am, I didn't ever want this to happen.
One of the reasons I am looking forward to my career as a nurse is so that I can get my finances back in order and work on maintaining good credit. I'm so upset over this that it's causing me to lose sleep. Does anyone have any advice on this matter? Please help, I don't want to be dealing w/ this level of stress a week before class starts.
* I'd like to add that besides the negative financial information on my credit report there is nothing in my background that really worries me too much. I've never been arrested or charged with anything more serious than a speeding ticket. I thought that that's what really mattered when you are applying for nursing jobs, but I guess not...
at my previous place of employment, we conducted credit checks as part of the background check. we were looking for people who are currently late on credit obligations. in other words, if you are currently 30, 60 days late on your car, credit cards, or mortgage, we generally would not hire the person. the reason is that the person is more likely to steal from the employer to help get "caught up". given the current market, employers can do just about anything to ensure they are selecting the "best" candidate from the enormous applicant pool.
having medical bills will not, i think, prevent you from securing employment. also, you should check out this site: www.creditboards.com i ran across it one day when surfing the net. it appears that many people are having medical collections removed from their credit report as it is a violation of hippa. i only read a small part of the article, but it may be something to take a gander at.
good luck.
sorry, but that is one sanctimonious load of horse crap. having bad credit does not make one a bad person, contrary to what that idiot suze orman says. i have horrible credit because while i was working on my first degree, we had to let some things go, always thinking that when i finished school, i'd get a job and we could get caught up. i graduated almost 4 years ago and there is no job to be found. now, i'm a full time nursing student working 4 days a month at an alf. i'm sure one can guess that my credit isn't going to get any better. but i would never steal from my employer or anyone else.
CrazierThanYou
1,917 Posts
sorry, but that is one sanctimonious load of horse crap. having bad credit does not make one a bad person, contrary to what that idiot suze orman says. i have horrible credit because while i was working on my first degree, we had to let some things go, always thinking that when i finished school, i'd get a job and we could get caught up. i graduated almost 4 years ago and there is no job to be found. now, i'm a full time nursing student working 4 days a month at an alf. i'm sure one can guess that my credit isn't going to get any better. but i would never steal from my employer or anyone else.