By Maanasa Kona and Vrudhi Raimugia

Medical debt is without doubt one of the main causes of chapter in the US. As many as 40 % of U.S. adults, or about 100 million individuals, are at the moment in debt due to unpaid medical or dental payments. Medical debt might be topic to aggressive collections efforts by hospitals and debt collectors—a client may even lose their residence or a portion of their paycheck. Although federal legislation has some safeguards towards medical debt and its downstream penalties, the federal framework of medical debt safety has important gaps.

In a new report for the Commonwealth Fund, CHIR’s Maanasa Kona and Vrudhi Raimugia look at how states are filling gaps in federal legislation. Authors analyzed related federal and state legal guidelines and conferred with a number of state consultants in medical debt legislation and coverage.

Key findings from the report embrace:

• Twenty states have their very own monetary help requirements, and 27 have neighborhood profit requirements. Nevertheless, the energy of those requirements varies extensively.
• Comparatively few states regulate billing and collections practices or restrict the authorized cures out there to collectors.
• Solely 5 states have reporting necessities which are sturdy sufficient to determine each noncompliance with state legislation and patterns of discriminatory practices.
• Many states can additional shield sufferers by bettering entry to monetary help, guaranteeing that nonprofit hospitals are incomes their tax exemption, and limiting aggressive billing and collections practices.

You possibly can learn the total report right here and discover extra detailed state-by-state info within the interactive map right here. For any questions, contact Maanasa Kona at Maanasa.Kona@georgetown.edu.