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New Medical Debt Developments

New IRS regulations, attorney general settlements, and CFPB actions offer key new protections relating to delinquent medical debt. These are all covered in the updated online version of Chapter 9 of NCLC’s Collection Actions (3d ed. 2014). Click on highlight updates at the top of a page to see the new changes added since the print edition. Highlights include:

Section 9.3.1: in-depth discussion of the recently finalized IRS regulations governing medical debt owed to nonprofit hospitals. The IRS regulations require nonprofit hospitals to screen patients for eligibility for financial assistance and restrict the use of certain "extraordinary" debt collection activities prior to this screening.

Section 9.3.5: recent developments regarding the impact of medical debt on credit reports, including credit reporting agency settlements with state attorneys general and the credit reporting agencies on treatment of medical debt, changes by FICO and VantageScore, and an important new CFPB study.