“Information about unpaid medical bills is reported to the nationwide credit reporting agencies (NCRAs) from two sources. It can be reported directly by the medical service provider (e.g., a doctor) or by a third-party debt collection agency that has purchased the debt or been contracted to collect it. The vast majority of medical debt reported to the NCRAs – about 99.4 percent of accounts – is reported by collection agencies. We refer to the medical bills that collection agencies report as “medical collections.” Once reported, the information about these medical collections is reflected on the credit records that the NCRAs maintain. The information about these medical collections are then used by credit scoring models, such as the FICO and VantageScore models, to derive predictions about the creditworthiness of consumers. These predictions, called “credit scores,” can have a large effect on a consumer’s access to credit. Credit scoring models generally do not differentiate between medical collections and the other debts that are reported by third-party collection agencies (“non-medical collections”), which include things like unpaid rent or cell phone bills.1 Traditionally, such models have also not differentiated between collections that have been fully repaid (“paid collections”) and those that remain unpaid (“unpaid collections”). The use of medical collections in credit scoring models has generated concerns stemming from the unique circumstances under which these debts arise and come to be reported to the NCRAs.3 Among their unique characteristics is that consumers may sometimes be unaware that the medical collections exist.”