🇺🇸 Bureaus Act on Medical Debts

Three major credit bureaus announced the following on 3/18:

• Remove paid medical collection debt beginning from July 1, 2022;

• Increase the time before unpaid debt appears on credit reports from 6 months to 1 year;

• Exclude medical collection debt under at least $500, in 1st half of 2023.

CNBC report: 70% of unpaid medical debt from credit reports

Some Background:

According to a comprehensive CFPB report published earlier this month:

• A total of $88 billion in medical collections,

• Roughly every 1 in 5 adults reports medical debt.

• 58% of collections in credit reports are medical collections.

• Most medical debts are low tickets below $500, but 10%~ owns $1,500+.

CFPB challenged whether medical debt should be in credit reports,

Given that consumers do not have choices and visibility of the pricing.

Many lenders already do not count medical collections as collection items.

Graphs are from the CFPB report.