Credit Agencies Pledge To Drop Most Medical Debt From Consumers’ Reports

CBS News: Most Medical Debt Will Be Dropped From Consumers' Credit Reports 
Medical bills have become a source of major financial trouble for millions of Americans, amounting to the largest source of personal debt in the U.S. Now, the top three credit reporting agencies plan to drop most medical debt from consumers' credit reports starting this summer.  Equifax, Experian and TransUnion on Friday said that they are making a number of changes to the way they handle medical debt on credit reports, which is a record of a consumer's borrowing and repayment. Lenders use credit reports to determine whether a consumer is a good bet for a loan, which means a poor credit score can make it hard to get a mortgage, car loan or other products. Credit reports can also affect people's ability to rent an apartment and even get a job. (Picchi, 3/18)

The New York Times: Credit Companies Will Remove Stains From Repaid Medical Debts
Starting on July 1, medical debts that were paid after they went to collections will no longer appear on consumers’ credit reports, where they can currently linger for up to seven years. New unpaid medical debts will now only appear after a full year of being sent to collections — instead of the current six months. That will give people more time to address the debt with their insurance companies and health care providers. And beginning in the first half of 2023, the credit-reporting companies said, they will exclude unpaid medical collection debts under $500. (Siegel Bernard, 3/18)

CIDRAP: COVID-19 Patients May Owe Thousands For After-Hospital Care
Even when insurance companies waived charges for COVID-19 hospitalizations, 10% of patients still had out-of-pocket costs of $2,000 or more for care that took place in the 6 months after they were released, finds a new study in the American Journal of Managed Care. The same team published a study Feb 14 in JAMA Network Open showing that COVID-19 hospitalizations alone could cost patients, on average, $1,600 to $4,000. (3/18)

And HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra makes a push for more telehealth coverage —

Modern Healthcare: Becerra: HHS Will Fight For More Telehealth After Public Health Emergency Ends
The Department of Health and Human Services will seek to sustain and expand access to telemedicine after the federal government declares the COVID-19 public health emergency to be over, Secretary Xavier Becerra said Friday. Telehealth proved critical to Medicare beneficiaries during the first year of the pandemic, according to a report the HHS Office of Inspector General released Tuesday. "We would be really closing our eyes to a new form of quality healthcare if we did not expand authorities for telehealth to be available to Americans," Becerra said during a news conference. (Goldman, 3/18)

In other health industry news —

Modern Healthcare: HRSA: Providers That Lost 340B Eligibility During COVID-19 Can Reapply
Providers that were kicked out of the 340B Drug Pricing Program during the pandemic will be able to apply for reinstatement, the Biden administration said Friday in a notice to providers. Disproportionate Share Hospitals, sole community hospitals, rural referral centers, children's hospitals and free-standing cancer hospitals that were terminated from the program after Jan. 26, 2020, due to a change in patient mix, can apply to be reinstated. Providers must prove that the share of Medicare or Medicaid patients they treated decreased as a result of the public health emergency or the pandemic. (Hellmann, 3/18)

The Boston Globe: Doctors And Patients Grapple With Uncertainty As Tufts Moves Ahead With Plans To Shut Hospital Services For Children 
Nearly two months after executives at Tufts Medical Center announced they would close hospital beds for children, uncertainty around the controversial decision and the hospital’s ability to continue providing pediatric services is growing. Tufts leaders initially said they would keep inpatient beds for children open until July 1, but with staff already departing for new jobs, the pediatric hospital may be forced to shut down sooner, doctors and nurses told the Globe. The future of outpatient pediatric services also appears uncertain: Tufts leaders said they plan to keep outpatient clinics open, but this, too, will depend on having enough staff to provide care. (Dayal McCluskey, 3/20)

The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer: Cleveland Clinic Experts Join Call To End Disparities In Organ Donation; African-Americans Face Barriers To Transplant List 
African-Americans and rural Americans often face barriers that keep them off organ transplant waiting lists, according to a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. The Cleveland Clinic’s Dr. James Young and Jesse Schold were among the experts involved in drafting the recently announced recommendations. In order to create a more equitable system, the American transplant network needs to reduce the number of donated organs that aren’t used, make it easier for African-American patients to get on transplant lists, and increase the number of organs transplanted annually by 2026, the report said. (Washington, 3/21)

Stat: 5 Tech Strategies Health Systems Are Testing To Combat Clinician Burnout
Health care workers are experiencing unprecedented levels of burnout during the pandemic, leading many to quit or consider jobs that don’t involve patient care. To prevent more departures, their employers — desperate to retain critical employees amid staffing shortages — are ramping up tech investments to make work less stressful. “We have an unprecedented amount of our clinical workforce that’s saying, man, I’m tired of this and I don’t know if I want to continue doing what I’ve been doing,” Albert Marinez, Intermountain Healthcare’s chief analytics officer, told STAT. Marinez spoke about burnout at the HIMSS conference last week in Orlando, where employee retention was a recurring theme. (Ravindranath, 3/21)