MN’s Debt Fairness Act Takes Effect to Protect Those with Medical Debt

The Debt Fairness Act officially went into effect in Minnesota on October 1st. The law hopes to protect those struggling with medical debt.

First proposed by Sen. Liz Bolden of Rochester, this act won’t erase medical debt, but it aims to help patients stay afloat as they pay off their remaining debt by giving patients and their families financial guardrails from what some lawmakers believe are predatory collection practices.

“They’ve been denied care, those debts have been passed on to spouses at the end of someone’s life,” said Minnesota Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy in an interview with Lakeland News. “We think that that is adding insult to an injury that comes along with a serious condition. So this year, the legislature took decisive action to make sure that those penalties were removed, to make sure that that debt is treated differently, and to make sure that Minnesotans who are suffering from a serious condition or an accident don’t also bear the cost of debt.”

This act will prevent medical providers from denying care due to any unpaid medical debt, and it bans the transfer of medical debt from a dead patient to a surviving spouse. The law also creates processes for patients to dispute billing errors.

“It won’t apply to a credit score, and certainly people won’t be denied care if they’re carrying medical debt, which is the most important provision, from my perspective, as a registered nurse,” “But they’re all important, right? We talked with somebody yesterday who ended up carrying the debt of a spouse who had passed away and had to delay a retirement by a number of years in order to pay off that debt. That just isn’t right, people shouldn’t have to experience that. And with this new law, they won’t.”

The Debt Fairness Act also limits wage garnishment practices and expands protections to everyone living and working in Minnesota so patients can have more breathing room in the repayment process. In addition, it requires medical providers to publish their collection practices.