Haynes, a staff attorney and specialist in medical debt for the National Consumer Law Center, which provides legal services on consumer issues for people with low incomes. “This is the one kind of debt that none of us take on voluntarily,” said Berneta L. An emergency room visit, a necessary surgery, a Caesarian birth, treatment for a chronic health condition such as cancer or diabetes, all can plunge a person into a sea of medical bills and collection notices. A separate Kaiser analysis estimated that more than a quarter of those with medical debt owed more than $5,000, and half of those owed more than $10,000.ĭebt of all kinds can be crushing, but advocates say medical debt is distinct because it is largely unavoidable. It also places limits on collection actions for medical debt.Īccording to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll conducted earlier this year, 41% of those surveyed - which translates to more than 100 million adults - reported that they currently had a debt due to medical or dental bills. CANCELED DC COLLECTIONS FOR FREEThe New Mexico law requires hospitals to proactively screen patients to determine whether they qualify for free and discounted care. “But we worked with the bill’s sponsors to get it down to where it was in the end. “At first, we objected because of what was in there that we didn’t think could be accomplished,” said Troy Clark, president of the New Mexico Hospital Association. But in several states, the hospitals remained at the negotiating table and eventually did not oppose passage after winning concessions. Hospital groups in some states initially objected to additional administrative burdens the laws would entail. Measures to provide protections to those with medical debt died in Republican-controlled legislatures in Arkansas, Florida and Texas, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Two conservative states, Arkansas and Idaho, passed measures in 2021 that extended the time during which creditors could collect on some medical debts, though Idaho's was a tweak to a patient debt protection law passed the year before. The laws also mandated medical providers to offer payment plans to eligible patients and created more safeguards in the collections process to, in some instances, prevent liens on homes or garnishment of wages.Īll the measures were passed in predominately Democratic-leaning states and Washington, D.C. The debt laws passed in the past two years have required better financial screening to try to ensure hospitals provide more free and discounted care to eligible patients. Surprise medical billing refers to unexpected, often exorbitant bills patients receive for out-of-network medical services, often during surgeries and emergency room visits. Some legislators say they began focusing on the issue of medical debt after a related issue, surprise medical billing, spurred legislative action in many states and in Congress in the past few years. Moved by stories of residents losing homes, savings and credit as a consequence of medical debt, nearly a dozen have enacted laws in the past two years to provide protections for consumers. States have become increasingly focused on the problem. Census Bureau data by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The country is awash in medical debt, $195 billion worth at least, affecting tens of millions, according to survey data and analyses of U.S. It worries plenty of other Americans as well. It stresses me out and worries me day in and day out.” “It feels like I can’t get out of this hole. “I have my medical debt, and I try to pay it off, but then I can’t pay my rent and my car loan and all these other things,” said Parish, 43. He’s got the total down by about $10,000, but what’s left still feels like the size of a mountain. The electrician says he earns about $26,000 a year, about as much as his medical bills climbed to in the early 2010s when he was without health insurance. Parish ran up unavoidable debts because of treatment for a congenital heart condition, mitral valve prolapse, a disease that twice sent him to the hospital with symptoms he thought meant a heart attack. His credit is shot, so landlords aren’t eager to rent to him. It’s not in the cards, though, as he sees it. Robert Parish would love to move to a nicer house, something in the Nashville, Tennessee, area where he’d be proud to bring the woman he plans to marry and her two daughters to live.
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