Fulford Scott L, Wilson Eric
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Office of Research, Washington, DC 20552, United States.
Health Aff Sch. 2025 Aug 11;3(8):qxaf159. doi: 10.1093/haschl/qxaf159. eCollection 2025 Aug.
Medical debt and collections are common and large, but estimates differ widely.
We used 2 nationally representative surveys in 2024 that are associated with respondents' credit records to measure medical debt and medical collections from survey participants directly and compare their responses with the medical collections reported to the credit bureau.
In 2024, 36% of US households had medical debt, 21% had a past-due medical bill, and 23% were paying a medical bill over time to a provider. Medical and dental providers are thus one of the most common sources of credit to households. At the same time, 15% of people were contacted by someone other than their medical provider to collect a medical debt while only 12% had any medical collection on their credit record and 5% had a new collection. Active medical collections only partially overlap with medical collections on credit reports and neither represents all medical debt. We bound the mean total debt in active medical collection for people with such collections as between $2456 and $7931.
These debts are not interchangeable, so future policy and research should distinguish carefully between them.
医疗债务和追款情况普遍且数额巨大，但估算结果差异很大。
我们使用了2024年两项具有全国代表性的调查，这些调查与受访者的信用记录相关联，以直接测量调查参与者的医疗债务和医疗追款情况，并将他们的回答与信用局报告的医疗追款情况进行比较。
2024年，36%的美国家庭有医疗债务，21%有逾期未付的医疗账单，23%正在向医疗服务提供者分期支付医疗账单。因此，医疗和牙科服务提供者是家庭最常见的信贷来源之一。与此同时，15%的人被非其医疗服务提供者的其他人联系以追讨医疗债务，而只有12%的人在信用记录上有任何医疗追款记录，5%有新的追款记录。正在进行的医疗追款仅部分与信用报告中的医疗追款重叠，且两者都不能代表所有医疗债务。我们确定有此类追款记录的人的正在进行的医疗追款中的平均总债务在2456美元至7931美元之间。
这些债务不可互换，因此未来的政策和研究应仔细区分它们。
