Um, how about dental debt?
Clark has been talking about this for awhile. Our medical system is so screwed up I support this. If someone has a spotless credit history but some very expensive medical bills are dragging them down, I think this rule is good.
I’ve always been amazed how the Dental and Medical are completely separated in our society. Not sure why it evolved that way.
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As someone that relies on credit information when evaluating new tenants, I do not agree with this change. If they want to exclude it from the scoring model, that is one thing, but don’t remove it from the report entirely. Let me determine how I want to treat it when evaluating the tenant application. I want a full picture of the outstanding liabilities and debt payments in order to make a decision.
Yes it applies to dental and optometric and podiatry and any sort of health debts.
Collection agencies I have used for years are closing. Their last resort was to report to credit bureaus. With that gone, they have little power to collect.
People are now free to rip my practice off with no immediate repercussions. Used to be when they tried to buy a car or a house, they would have to clean up their credit and pay me. No more.
People imagine this protects patients who are bankrupted by unplanned medical expenses. These patients are very few. My average patient unpaid bill is $50-$700. It is hard to believe, but some people are deadbeats who regularly gyp businesses out of money with no regrets. The typical one for me is irresponsible people with toothaches. They would rather move on to another dentist to rip off than come back and have to pay their balance.
A common trick is to come to my office for big ticket items immediately after they terminate employment. The insurance company is still showing the patient as being covered. It takes a few days for carriers to be notified. Our phone call says coverage, but after we bill we get the notice of no coverage. Patient had it all planned out to rip us off.
Now my only recourse is to sue delinquent patients. I just finished one, and three more are in the works. A warning letter from my attorney costs me $135. Serving them with a court notice costs me $650. If I have to garnish their paychecks, it will be more. All these fees are added to the balance they had to pay originally. They end up paying 2 to 3 times what they owed me originally.
The patient who just paid up was a doozy. He told my attorney he never had treatment at my office, and I was making the whole thing up. We had his driver’s license scanned, and an x-ray of his entire mouth for evidence! Guy was dumb as a brick. When he paid his balance, he actually wanted another appointment for more treatment! No dice, scumbag.
Many health providers will not bother to hire an attorney, and just increase their fees. The government protecting deadbeats increases the cost of care for everyone. Protecting deadbeats is never good government policy.
Update
If he is able to stop this stupid rule, it would be one of the best initiatives our new president could take.
But even if he were able to stop implementation today, medical collection agencies would be reluctant to go back into business with the uncertainty that was created by this rule.
Making it difficult for businesses to collect money legally due them is not good public policy.