medical bills

Before the legislation, hospitals and medical providers could put liens on patients’ homes or take up to 10 percent of their paychecks to collect on unpaid medical bills. Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation last week prohibiting those collection practices, effective immediately.

A few months after a nonprofit organization announced it was erasing millions of dollars of medical debt in the Finger Lakes region, a team of researchers has begun studying what that means for the people whose debt was forgiven.