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S 857

Restores judicial discretion relating to bail reform; repealer

2025 Regular Session Introduced by George Borrello and 7 co-sponsors

Massachusetts establishes a uniform medical debt reporting system requiring providers to report debts before collections, collecting data to protect consumers and guide policy.

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Bill Summary · S 857

Summary — S.857: An Act to ensure uniform and transparent reporting of medical debt data

Overview / Purpose

S.857 would create a statewide, uniform, interoperable public reporting system for medical debt in Massachusetts. Its stated goals are to improve transparency about who carries medical debt, inform policy, reduce adverse effects of medical debt on patients, and protect consumers from unfair collection practices by ensuring reporting occurs and is analyzed before bills are advanced to collection agencies.

Key definitions (added to chapter 12C)

  • Medical debt: any debt for goods or services provided by a medical facility, health care provider, or emergency medical services provider, including third‑party financing used solely to purchase such services.
  • Significant medical debt: any medical debt owed by an individual exceeding $200.

Major provisions

  • Establishes a "uniform medical debt reporting system" (new chapter 12C, §25) coordinated by the designated center with the public health council, provider boards, the commission board, and the state finance and governance board.
  • Requires providers to report debt data into the system as a prerequisite before advancing overdue medical bills to collection agencies; the center must make relevant data available to the Secretary of the Executive Office of Health and Human Services prior to a provider sending debt to collections.
  • System must collect detailed demographic and contextual data to support policy analysis, including: race; sex/gender identity/sexual orientation; disability; criminal record; health status; income; education; nation/region of origin; region of residence; insurance status; veteran status; age groups; chronic condition status; primary language; and timing between procedures and reporting to collections.
  • Center must analyze trends: assignment and collection per provider, prevalence of "significant" debt, concentration of debt, risks of masking data, public health impacts, and rates of debt settlement.
  • System may be centralized with a public portal and must be accessible to state agencies (EOHHS, DPH, commission, state finance board).

Changes to consumer reporting law (chapter 93, §52)

  • Adds medical debt as reportable information.
  • Exempts certain medical debt from consumer reports: debt not yet reported to EOHS under the new system; fully paid/settled debts; and debts existing for less than one year from first acquisition.

Funding

  • Amends chapter 6D, §7 to allow reimbursement to the center from the Healthcare Payment Reform Fund to support implementation and operation of the reporting system.

Who is affected

  • Health care providers and medical facilities (new reporting requirements prior to collections).
  • Patients/consumers carrying medical debt (data collection, potential protections before collections, and limits on reporting certain debts to consumer reports).
  • Medical debt buyers/collectors (changes in pre‑collection reporting and consumer reporting rules).
  • State agencies and researchers (access to standardized data for policy and public health analysis).

Legislative status & timeline (selected)

  • Filed (Senate Docket): 01/07/2025; introduced/referred to committees early 2025.
  • 03/05/2025: Read twice; referred to Committee on Finance.
  • 05/12/2025: Public hearing scheduled (Gardner Auditorium).
  • 06/16/2025: Reported favorably and referred to Senate Ways and Means.
  • Sponsor(s): filed by Senator Lydia Edwards (MA); companion/related measures and a list of additional cosponsors/related bills are indicated in the file.

Potential impacts / considerations

  • Would produce a centralized, standardized data source to inform policy-making on medical debt and identify demographic disparities.
  • Imposes new reporting burdens on providers and creates timing constraints before sending accounts to collections.
  • Limits the consumer reporting of certain recent/paid medical debts, which may affect credit reporting and debt purchasing markets.
  • Implementation costs are anticipated; the bill authorizes reimbursement from the Healthcare Payment Reform Fund.

Note: The bill text and procedural entries provided contain some overlapping or inconsistent metadata (dates and sponsor lists). The summary above reflects the substantive provisions as presented in the bill text.

Compiled from official sources — confirm details with the bill’s official record.

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