ALBANY— The number of hospital debt lawsuits and debtors have plunged following changes to state laws around medical debt collection, according to a new report by an advocacy organization.
The eight policy changes — passed as standalone laws or provisions in the state budget between 2020 and 2024 — aimed to reduce medical debt across the state, said the Community Service Society of New York, the group that authored the report and has been campaigning for the changes. Over the same period, the number of medical debt lawsuits filed by hospitals against former patients fell by 99.9 percent, from nearly 14,000 to 100 annually.
That amounts to about $36 million saved, the report says. The proportion of New Yorkers with medical debt in collections also declined from 7.6% to 1.7%, which the report says removed between $241 million and $337 million in debt from consumer credit reports…