<human>: Give me a shortened version of the text

**Background** - In the past, I had a lot of medical procedures done, specifically a transplant, and as you can imagine some of the bills that piled up have gone into collections. At the time I was still going to college and even with help from parents, was not able to keep up with the amount of bills I incurred.

Fast forward to present day and I am now employed and making decent money, living in an apartment with my wife, with a credit score of 604 (which was last checked less than a month ago). I don't have any CC debt and am current with my student loans (last 30 day late was almost 2 years ago because I was waiting for deferment, it kicked in later than I thought, and the loan company wouldn't budge on removing it from my CR).

I've read online basically everywhere I could find info that collections are a different beast as far as affecting your score. I want to pay them off, but I've heard that paying off collections doesn't help your score, that only **TIME** will help collections have less of an effect. Most of my collections are already 4-5 years old, while the newest ones are about 2; if I pay them off, will it help? If I go this route, will it "renew" on my CR and show 'PAID' but with the current date? I was looking to try and buy a house in the next year or so and whatever I can do is what I'm giong to do. Any help/info would be appreciated.

Oh, and I've tried the whole "pay for delete" thing, which wasn't met with any sort of response. I haven't received correspondence from any collectors either since the collection letters 2 years ago.
<bot>: Have collections on report, 2-5 years old; better to pay off or just wait to improve credit score the fastest?