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People will be getting relief from medical debt on credit reports

People will be getting relief from medical debt on credit reports
People will be getting relief from medical debt on credit reports 01:08

(CBS DETROIT) - A series of new federal consumer protections could have your credit score going up if it's been lowered because of medical debt. Laws created by the Biden Administration are leading to changes aimed at positively impacting your credit score.

John McNamara of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau explained what national credit reporting companies like Experian, TransUnion, and Equifax are now doing differently when it comes to reporting medical debt. 

"They will stop reporting all medical debt balances under $500; they would just no longer be on people's credit reports," said McNamara. "The second thing was, they were going to begin basically suppressing all paid medical debt. So it no longer shows up on somebody's credit report because even a collection item that's paid shows that it was a collection item. It's something that we're going to take a look at. It's on our list of studies to do. As these roll-out, we'll take a look at how it impacts the scores for consumers, whether they do go up."

McNamara said overall this should help a lot of consumers. People should start seeing changes during the first part of this year. 

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