Sporting the impressive name of medFICo score the infamous credit industry Fair Isaac Corp., have a hand in its design and there are rumours that it could be making an appearance in some hospitals by the start of the summer.
Developed by Healthcare Analytics, a health technology firm based in Waltham Mass., it has received funding of $10 million each from Fair Isaac of Minneapolis, Tenet Healthcare Corporation, Dallas and North Bridge Venture Partners also of Waltham.
Fears have been expressed by consumer advocacy groups that the score will be checked before treatment is started resulting in patients with low medical credit scores possibly receiving lower quality medical care than that of those patients with a healthy medFICO score.
Linda Foley, founder of the Identity Theft Resource Centre in San Diego is looking for reassurance that scores will not be looked at before making a decision as to whether or not the treatment will be carried out.
Checking You Height, Weight and Credit Score
Chairman and chief executive of Healthcare Analytics is positive that this will not happen as hospitals will only check the score once the patient has received treatment been discharged and a bill has been raised. The score is based on medical bill payment history for each patient.
Mr Faber has been kept busy over the last six months by visiting nationwide hospital executives in an attempt to sell them the idea. He claims that already hospitals and other caring professions can access patient's existing credit scores obtaining information without their knowledge. However such credit scores are usually based on purchases such as cars.
A spokesman speaking on behalf of the US Fair trade commission reported that it would have to be done in such a way to ensure that the person viewing such information wouldn't have any idea of the patient's medical treatment as although The Fair Credit Reporting Act permits health officials to divulge debts incurred by healthcare it doesn't allow any indication of the type of treatment it covers.
Consumer Data industry Association is based in Washington and is a trade group that provide such credit reports. Their vice president of public affairs Norm Magnuson confirmed that although it is customary for hospitals to hand over outstanding accounts to collection agencies only provider's name and amount outstanding would be given. However in a case where the name would divulge the nature of the treatment (ie the Betty Ford Clinic, rehabilitation centre for drug and alcohol abuse) the only information given is the amount outstanding.
The new medFICO score would show a history of payments which had been settled on time unlike standard reports which show only late payments. To be within legal limits it could only include billing information.
Healthcare Analytics are gathering billing information from hospitals with a net yearly income of $100 with a view to further ndevelopment of medFICO.
Executives from Tenet, one of its three funding companies, confirm that the scoring system will help them determine whether or not a patient could meet his payment commitments or it should be written off as "bad debt".
Steve Mooney is senior vice president of patient financial services for Tenet the nations third largest hospital system made up of 63 hospitals and medical centres. Mr Mooney said that the system has seen $433 million of bad debts in the third quarter of this year. He added that 75% of this amount was from uninsured patients and the remaining 25% from patients who couldn't or wouldn't settle their bills. Without prior knowledge that patients will meet bills hospitals are unable to balance expenses against income and consequently are reluctant to invest in new projects.
In an attempt to work out how money can be collected from patients Tenet have placed them in categories according to marital status, treatment received (emergency or routine) and current credit rating (high or low). However about 40% of self pay patients do not have a credit score.
Credit Score Errors Soon to Be Medical Score Errors?
Meanwhile consumer advocates are incensed arguing that given problems such as identity theft and incorrect scoring information, the scoring should not be the basis for a medical version.
In an analysis of more than 500,000 individuals' credit scores which was carried out by the Consumer Federation of America it was discovered that 29% were 50 points lower than they should have been.
Linda Foley pointed out that this is the same problem that has been seen in the credit industry. What will happen if there is a mis-scoring whether its due to an identity theft or purely a clerical error?
She also added that a personal experience has alerted her to its possible dangers having spent six hours in an emergency room with her husband who was thought to be having a cardiac arrest. "If we had not have had health cover might that have had an impact on the quality of care received?"
According to Steve Mooney the hospital business has changed over the last 30 years taking on features of the retail industry. As patients are able to shop around more for their healthcare cover they will soon be able to purchase it much like buying a car.
This has not boded well with Pamela Dixon executive director of the World Privacy Forum who has points out that it is people's lives which are being discussed not a car.
And what about the typical issue of medical insurance companies taking their sweet time in paying bills, will that now count against you and your medical credit score and will that ding limit your access to care?
Additional Self-Help Resources
"The Complete Idiot's Guide to Improving your Credit Score (Complete