MN HF1814

Health care providers must publish and provide medical debt collection policies specifying procedures for communicating with patients, referring debt to collection agencies, and identifying uncollectible or satisfied debt.

Health care providers are prohibited from denying medically necessary treatments or services to patients due to outstanding medical debt, though may require enrollment in a payment plan as a condition of providing care.

Health care providers and health plans must participate in processes to identify and correct miscoded health treatments and services, and cannot bill patients or accept payments during review; patients must be notified that they will not be billed until the review is complete and miscoding is corrected.

Consumer reporting agencies are prohibited from including medical debt or medical information in consumer reports, and collecting parties are banned from threatening to deny medically necessary health treatment or services in collection communications.

Collecting parties are subject to strict liability of up to $1,000 per violation (tripled if willful and malicious) for prohibited practices including threatening wage garnishment without retaining a lawyer, using misleading communications, contacting debtors with automated systems after being told to stop, and reporting medical debt to credit agencies; debtors successfully defending against medical debt claims must be awarded costs and reasonable attorney fees.