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Laws and other consumer protections for medical debt and bills
Unfortunately many more individuals and families are struggling with paying their medical debt and bills, and hundreds of thousands of people are declaring bankruptcy every year from overwhelming medical debts and expenses.
There is some good news, and that is that some states have created laws and programs to help people deal with health care costs, including hospital bills. Among other things these programs help protect patients from aggressive and medical debt collectors and any potential illegal debt collection practices, they try to ensure that families are not charged high interest rates when they can’t afford to immediately pay for their medical bills, they ensure that low to moderate income underinsured or uninsured patients are charged reasonable prices for their health care, and laws also provide assistance in addressing and stopping the practice of balance billing.
States Offer Protections from Medical Debt Collection Practices
Some state laws provide exemptions to families and individuals with medical debt that will in effect protect more of their incomes from the collection process, and laws may also prevent them from losing their homes to unpaid medical bills.
Hospital Bill and Financial Assistance Laws.
Several states have passed detailed, comprehensive laws that ensure struggling people can receive charity care. Charity care is health care that is offered to lower income patients by medical providers and hospitals at greatly reduced prices or even for free. The state programs also control and limit hospitals’ billing and collection practices.
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Fair Prices For Hospitals and Debt Collection Laws.
Many agreements were made between some state government and hospitals in the state that deal with their billing practices and charity care. They put in place regulations for debt collectors and billing practices. You will find more information on your state below.
Protections against Balance Billing
Some states have begun to address the fairly new practice of balance billing. This practice is when insured patients receive expensive medical bills when they need to use an out-of-network providers. What happens is that out-of-network health care providers are generally billing patients the difference between their own charges and what the patient’s health insurance plan reimburses them. This difference, or balance, is usually much more than the copayments or co-insurance a patient would be responsible for paying for seeing in-network providers. This practice is called “balance billing.” and many states laws are now making it illegal.
Find more specific information on medical debt collection laws and programs for your state. Select your state below:
Additional states, click here.
The bottom line is that many states have laws and regulations that provide residents with free or discounted charity health care, and laws that also protect patients from illegal and / or aggressive medical debt collectors and agencies.
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