Hello,

TL;DR A detox center that I attended a year ago shut down, was looted, and my records were likely stolen. They are now demanding me to pay my outstanding balance in full after not debiting my monthly payment for ~6 months. If not, they are threatening collections.

I attended a detox center about a year ago that was.. awful. I won't go into details, but understaffing and lack of appropriate medical care was rampant. I was sent home while still detoxing from benzos, which is incredibly dangerous. I ended up using again a few days after I got out to ease the debilitating withdrawals. In March, I went to a proper facility and received the care that I needed and have since been sober.

In June of this year, employees had gone weeks without being paid. Then, the CEO killed himself. Another executive sent out an internal email telling everyone to hold tight. 5 days after the first suicide, this second exec killed himself as well. The company owned a facility in 3 different states. The facility that I attended was not properly secured or locked up. There was looting, drugs stolen, patient records stolen, etc.

There are ongoing cases in a few states to assist the workers. I want to be clear that I was never an employee and am seeking advice about something else.

In March, I set up a payment plan with their financial office to pay a small sum each month. Let's just say it's $100/mo for ~45 months. This agreement is not in writing, unfortunately, but I do have a few months of debits. After June, no more payments were withdrawn from my account and it fell off of my radar.

I received a letter yesterday stating that I have until December 4th to pay my entire balance in full (with a generous 20% discount), or could pay the full balance in 4 installments over 4 months. If not, the bill will be sent to collections. Obviously, I cannot afford any of this.

I'm curious if I have any recourse for either not making payments or demanding that they honor the previous monthly payment agreement? There are HIPAA violations, I was never notified my information could have been stolen.

Is there anything I could accomplish by hiring an attorney? Do I have a leg to stand on? I was thinking of offering to pay 10%, ~$400, to settle before collections. But I don't want to reach out if there is any hope of not having to pay.

Thanks in advance for the suggestions!

https://www.newhavenindependent.org/article/retreat_foreclosure