Comments are currently being accepted regarding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s proposed rule that would prohibit creditors from using medical debts when determining whether a consumer is eligible for credit. The comment period is open until August 12. To help those who might be interested in filing a comment, and to provide insight into the tone of the comments being filed, AccountsRecovery.net is sharing some of those comments here. To date, 89 comments have been filed.
Instead of tackling this issue to allow consumers access to healthy competition, government bureaus, in this case the CFPB, are targeting the problem from the other end – applying further regulation to those that report the debt to ‘make it go away’. But it doesn’t go away. These new regulations will surely create a new feedback loop, where those able to pay will be charged increasingly more and more to make up for the shortfall in revenue, until they are likewise no longer able to pay. Where does this model end? Anonymous (click here for full comment)
I went through and read all the comments from people who are against this rule. I expected to see “compliance officers” but not “health care workers”. It makes sense healthcare workers would be here, commenting about issues they’ve never had such as not being able to get a car loan or having to pay enormous amounts of interest just to buy a vehicle. It’s ridiculous a healthcare worker from any background would come here and express concerns about medical bills being removed from patients credit reports. Creditors and hospitals can still sue patients or get their money other ways, without destroying hard working Americans credit reports. Medical bills should never be a barrier or stop a person from purchasing a home or a vehicle, which are basic necessities. Lee Rinataniemi (click here for full comment)
A debt is a debt. We are a private single provider clinic whose surgeon has 28 years of experience helping people in our area get back to work and back to living their lives without incapacitating pain. In those 28 years reimbursements (or lack thereof) from insurance companies and the CMS have caused us to operate on a shoestring budget. Another increasing trend we see is patients not paying their bills. For our patients these are not unexpected debts through our clinic. We use all the resources provided by the insurance companies to try to deduce what the patient will owe before their surgery is performed and collect that prior to services. Many, many times this information we receive from the insurance company is incorrect, or the patient does not have that amount the insurance does not pay. Some of the deductibles we see often are as much as $6350.00, then they can have co-pays and co-insurances up to 50% of the service. In this case the patient signs a payment plan and they often do not live up to their commitment. Once they have their surgery, we may not hear back from them. The only recourse we have is to use collections companies that report to credit agencies. Without the credit reporting we have no hope of collecting on the debt they promised to pay. We are in the position of denying care to the patient or trust that they will honor their contract to pay the monthly amount predetermined. I would say less than 25% of these patients live up to their contract. What are we to do at this point? Valley Neurosurgery (click here for full comment)
Whether it is a want or a need it is a debt. In addition hiding Americans medical debt will not make it go away, and the huge disservice you will be providing the Mortgage/Banking industry. You are setting the Mortgage Industry up to fail. the same people you will be hiding medical debt for, will be able to a get a mortgage, they will certainly default on. By the way not 1 patient chooses to pay a medical bill and not buy food, chooses to pay a medical bill and not buy clothes, chooses to pay a medical bill and skips paying their rent, like you are claiming. Not 1. Anonymous (Click here for full comment)
“Why should I pay? It’s anyway not going to affect my credit.” These are the exact words an individual said to one of my colleagues at the Fair Capital debt collection agency while trying to collect a $325 outstanding deductible. This statement encapsulates a growing issue faced by small medical practices and other healthcare providers: the challenge of collecting unpaid co-pays, deductibles, and coinsurance from patients who increasingly feel no obligation to settle their debts.
Hiding medical debt from credit bureaus is ethically questionable. It provides limited impetus for medical consumers to pay the debt owed, putting additional stress on medical providers who are not being compensated for services provided. This scenario could lead to an increase in legal actions against consumers for non-payment, causing further strain on the court system and additional negative ratings on credit bureaus due to judgments filed against consumers. Anonymous (Click here for full comment)
