Is it true that medical bills cannot affect your credit?

[Aaronyoder]

Is it true that medical bills cannot affect your credit?

[Credit Expert]

No, there is no truth to that at all. In fact medical debts account for a large percentage of the risk factors I see in the hundreds of reports I review every month. There is a set of laws called HIPAA that prohibit the release of personal medical information to 3rd parties that you may be referring to but it rarely prevents the 3rd party from reporting negative information.