On December 12, the CFPB released a report titled “Medical Collections on Credit Reports in Native American Communities,” which analyzed the impact of medical debt collections on credit reports in predominantly American Indian or Alaska Native areas. The report revealed that consumers in Native communities are almost twice as likely to have medical debt in collections compared to the national average and have an average amount of medical debt in collection of 33 percent higher than the national average. The report also found that consumers in Native communities are significantly more likely than the overall U.S. population to have only medical debt collections on their credit records without any other types of tradelines present.

The CFPB’s report also identified that Native consumers may have medical debts sent to collections for bills they do not actually owe, often due to problems and confusion within the Indian Health Services (IHS) system, which could result in delayed payments, administrative errors, and inappropriate billing. The report specifically highlighted three issues faced by consumers in Native communities that it said exacerbated medical debt issues: (i) difficulties in consumers obtaining approval of payments for care; (ii) consumers receiving bills for services fully covered by the IHS; and (iii) significantly delayed payments to providers. The report also noted that access to IHS facilities and the expansion of state Medicaid were associated with a lower prevalence of medical debt in collections in Native communities.

Related to the Bureau’s interest in medical debt collection, on December 10, Senators Raphael Warnock (D-GA) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) penned a letter to CFPB Director Rohit Chopra, expressing their support for the CFPB’s proposed rulemaking on removing medical debt from credit reports (covered by InfoBytes here), among other things. The Senators emphasized the importance of finalizing this propose rule, highlighting the unique nature of medical debt and the need to protect against penalizing consumers for seeking medical care and incurring medical debt.