Bill > HF1814

This bill makes several key changes to laws governing medical debt in Minnesota: 1. It defines important terms like "health care provider," "medically necessary," and "miscode" that are used throughout the bill. 2. It requires health care providers to make their policies for collecting medical debt publicly available. 3. It prohibits health care providers from denying medically necessary care to patients or their family members due to outstanding medical debt, though providers can require patients to enroll in a payment plan. 4. It establishes a process for identifying and correcting miscoded health treatments and services, including prohibiting providers and health plans from billing or accepting payment from patients during the review. 5. It prohibits consumer reporting agencies from including medical debt or information on consumer reports. 6. It prohibits certain practices by medical debt collectors, such as threatening legal action without actually retaining a lawyer, publishing lists of debtors, or implying that medically necessary care will be denied. 7. It allows debtors who successfully defend against a medical debt claim to recover their legal costs and attorney's fees. 8. It gives the Attorney General authority to enforce the new medical debt laws and provides for civil penalties against violators. 9. It caps the interest rate that can be charged on medical debt at 4% per year.

Budget and Finance, Health and Social Services

https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/bill.php?b=House&f=HF1814&ssn=0&y=2023