Surprise Billing Ban Opens Door for CFPB to Curb Medical Debt

A new federal ban on surprise medical bills gives the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau a path to limit how much medical debt is posted to consumer credit reports.

The CFPB recently announced that it was looking into whether uncollected medical bills should be included on credit reports at all. Such debts are often inaccurate and not always representative of a person’s creditworthiness, the consumer watchdog said.

Forcing consumer credit reporting bureaus—including the big three Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion—to abandon medical debt may prove difficult for the CFPB, despite its broad rulemaking powers under the Dodd-Frank Act. Taking that step would ...