Texas Senate Bill 1037 - Surprise Medical Debt - S.B. 1037 - Not allowed to Report to Credit Bureaus

[Anonymous]

Effective Immediately - Appears Transunion has already removed reported medical debt. When will other 2 agency follow (E. & E.) ?

Texas S.B. 1037

(a) Except as provided by Subsection (b), a consumer
reporting agency may NOT furnish a consumer report containing
information related to:

(5) a collection account with a medical industry code,
if the consumer was covered by a health benefit plan at the time of
the event giving rise to the collection and the collection is for an
outstanding balance, after copayments, deductibles, and
coinsurance, owed to an emergency care provider or a facility-based
provider for an out-of-network benefit claim.

Any thoughts?

[gdale6]

This should be passed at the national level, over 50% of all collections are medical related. Kudos to TX for stepping to the plate on this. I would suspect the other 2 will get it in gear in short order or you could just dispute them based on this bill if you live in TX.

[Anonymous]

God bless Texas ❤❤❤ (it's an old song lol...and I'm from Texas)

[Anonymous]

This isn’t all medical debt, it’s only debt that was caused by insurance not covering out of network services as part of the bill. If you can prove that the medical bills on your report are exclusively due to out of network bills, you can submit that to the CRAs and have them take it down. 

[Anonymous]

I would expect this to lead to the deletion of most medical debt from the CR, because it ends up being a logistical nightmare on with whom the burden of proof lies. Typically, as most of us can attest to, it's the consumer. But as CFPB complaints start rolling in for bureaus not removing debts after they are challenged, I expect this to snowball to the exclusion of medical debt all together. I'm curious if Transunion has just started deleting any debt with a medical code...?

[Anonymous]

The exclusion already existed for debts that should have been paid by insurance. This just seems like a step closer to excluding medical debt all together.

[Anonymous]

Hope this becomes law both in Texas and nationally! It seems as consumers our government and large private sector companies keep trying to keep us without funds to buy widgets with... (had to deleete the rest of this comment as it was political and could lead to 'Rants')?! Well anyway, I will keep my fingers crossed!

[iced]

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@gdale6 wrote:

This should be passed at the national level, over 50% of all collections are medical related. Kudos to TX for stepping to the plate on this. I would suspect the other 2 will get it in gear in short order or you could just dispute them based on this bill if you live in TX.

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The problem that needs solved is the absurd prices we allow US medical care to be charged at.

I had a 5 minute office visit that involved a pack of gauze and a small pair of scissors that I had to write a check for $1,800+ for because the hospital claimed it was surgery (and that was after insurance). I'm pretty sure if a mechanic or plumber or even a lawyer charged that much for that little time there'd be news articles about it and massive public backlash. There's starters for the Yankees who don't get that much money for 5 minutes of their time.

Meanwhile, a two hour visit with tests run and drugs prescribed in Munich for me last year? 50 EUR. The care was every bit as advanced and good as here, too.

[Anonymous]

I absolutely agree, our medical/healthcare system is broken.

[Anonymous]

Have any Texas residents found that TransUnion dropped the medical collections from their report? What about the other 2 agencies? This Senate Bill relates to Texas SB 1264 about consumer protections.