The Colorado legislature has passed a bill that caps the interest rate on medical debt, places new requirements on debt collectors collecting medical debt, and makes violations of the law an unfair or deceptive practice subject to additional penalties. The bill now goes to Gov. Jared Polis for his signature or veto.
More details about the bill – SB23-093 — can be accessed by clicking here. The bill passed in the state Senate last month by a vote of 26-to-9. It passed the state House yesterday by a vote of 43-to-20, largely among party lines, according to a published report. Lawmakers did think that medical debt was being unfairly singled out, relative to other kinds of debt, and that the law could be seen as “picking on” medical providers.
“It’s right and good to help those in need. That’s what we’re supposed to do … but here, we are not providing for them. We are forcing medical service providers and professionals like me to provide for them,” said Rep. Brandi Bradley, a Republican and a physical therapist, in the report. “It is not right to slap the people that got us through this pandemic and nursed our loved ones back to health, to do this to them.”
Among the provisions of the bill are:
- Capping the medical debt interest rate at 3%
- Pausing collections on medical debt as patients appeal their coverage and prohibiting reporting the debt to a consumer reporting agency until a certain amount of time after an individual fails to fulfill the terms of a payment plan
- Requiring medical debt creditors or debt collectors to verify total debt owed upon request by a patient and to provide a copy of a payment plan
- Requiring healthcare providers or healthcare facilities to provide, upon request, an estimate of the total cost of medical services to a person who intends to self-pay for the service
- Reinstating the attorney general’s authority to protect consumers from deceptive trade practices related to billing practices, surprise billing, and balance billing whether they seek in or out-of-network care
