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New credit score system to debut this summer

Patient Access Weekly Advisor, Dallas Morning News, December 19, 2007

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Members of the healthcare industry are creating a new kind of credit score to judge patients' ability to pay their hospital bills. The medFICO score could debut as early as this summer in some hospitals, the Dallas Morning News reports.

The medFICO score is backed by funding from Fair Isaac, of Minneapolis; Tenet Healthcare Corp. based in Dallas; and venture capital firm North Bridge Venture Partners, based in Waltham, MA. It is being developed by Healthcare Analytics, a health technology firm in Waltham.

To develop its scoring system, Healthcare Analytics is gathering patient billing data from hospital systems with a combined annual net revenue of $100 billion.

The medFICO score would provide a history of timely payments, unlike a standard report, which lists only late payments.

According to the Dallas Morning News, Tenet executives say the system could help them determine whether a patient is able to pay his bill or if the bill should be written off as uncollectible.

Consumer advocacy groups are raising concern that the score will be checked before patients are treated. They argue that those with low medical credit scores could receive lower-quality care than those with a good medFICO score.

To read the full story in the Dallas Morning News, click here.

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