Urban.org: “Medical debt can intensify financial challenges, affect health care access, and potentially worsen health outcomes. Starting in 2022, the three nationwide credit reporting companies made significant changes to medical debt reporting. Paid medical collections were removed from credit reports, debt in collections would no longer be used in calculating Vantage credit scores, the grace period for medical debt was extended to one year, and collections under $500 were excluded from consumer credit reports. These changes helped cut the number of Americans with medical debt in collections in half and improve credit scores. But 15 million Americans still have medical debt in collections, and most debt balances remain on credit reports. The Biden-Harris Administration has called on states and localities to reduce the burden of medical debt and has announced new actions to remove medical debt from credit reports altogether…”