Almost 1 in 10 Connecticut residents are burdened by medical debt[1] and often they are the most vulnerable among us. Connecticut became the first state to help over 120,000 residents pay off medical debt.[2] But many of us are just one car accident, one cancer diagnosis, one house fire, or one chronic disease away from crushing medical debt. Even if we haven’t personally experienced medical debt, it looms over us and threatens our peace of mind because it’s usually unplanned, unpredictable, unavoidable, and unaffordable.
What can health care consumers do to reduce or eliminate medical debt? The Office of the Healthcare Advocate (OHA) has three suggestions:
- If you have insurance, minimize medical debt by making sure insurance pays when it should. Too many legitimate claims are wrongly denied or left unpaid. If you need help to challenge a denial of health care services or payment, contact the OHA for free assistance. Our experienced attorneys, nurses, paralegals, and consumer information representatives will help you maximize your insurance coverage and minimize medical debt.
- While you should always go to closest ER in an emergency, otherwise use available information to identify free or discounted hospital care by comparing hospital financial assistance eligibility criteria.
Every hospital has a different assistance policy and eligibility levels.[3] Within the next few months, OHA will launch a new resource on our website listing financial assistance information for each CT hospital, their eligibility and application websites, and direct contacts at each hospital to help health care consumers to find and compare financial assistance all in one place.
OHA is also building a new resource to help health care consumers determine eligibility for free or discounted health care from any CT hospital. We hope to have this comparative tool ready for use by next July (2026).
- Ask hospitals for help. Non-profit hospitals must provide free or discounted care as a community benefit for lower income individuals because they don’t pay property/income/sales taxes. Who may be eligible for free or discounted health care? For example, using the latest 2023 reported numbers, if you make minimum wage in CT, at some hospitals your care may be free, and some hospitals offer discounted care for an individual who makes up to $80,000 or a household of 2 that makes $116,000.
Medical debt is often inaccurate and does not represent a person’s ability to pay day-to-day expenses. The additional damage by medical debt to a person’s credit rating has become so severe that as of July 2024, CT prohibited medical debt reporting by hospitals and collection entities to credit agencies.[4] In January of this year, the federal government acted to follow suit.[5] But last month, a court decision reinstated medical debt as reportable to credit agencies.[6] It is now unclear if CT medical debt reporting is inconsistent with the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act that regulates debt collection entities and hospital reporting to credit agencies.[7]
At the very least, we know that medical debt will worsen as more people in CT are projected to become uninsured and underinsured due to expected changes in Medicaid and Affordable Care Act plans, increased health care costs and patient out-of-pocket responsibilities, and delayed care (making healthcare more costly).
Patients, providers, and insurers are all in health care together – those who need health care, those who provide health care, and those who pay for health care. Reducing medical debt is necessary to help consumers sleep better and health care work better.
[1] New CT law prohibits medical debt reporting to credit agencies
[2] https://portal.ct.gov/governor/news/press-releases/2025/05-2025/governor-lamont-announces-residents-being-notified-this-week-that-medical-debt-has-been-erased?language=en_US
[3] https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2024/state-options-making-hospital-financial-assistance-programs-more-accessible
[4] https://www.cga.ct.gov/2024/ACT/PA/PDF/2024PA-00006-R00SB-00395-PA.PDF
[5] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/17/business/medical-debt-credit-reports-ruling.html; https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/07/22/medical-debt-credit-scores/; https://www.kff.org/quick-take/polling-on-medical-debt-illustrates-the-challenges-that-blocked-credit-reporting-rule-sought-to-address/: https://www.npr.org/2025/07/15/nx-s1-5468438/medical-debt-credit-reports-ruling; https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/fund-reports/2025/jul/state-protections-against-medical-debt-look-policies-across-us
[6] Id.
[7] Id.