Health and Health Care Utilization Effects of Medical Debt Forgiveness
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ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04835012 |
Recruitment Status :
Recruiting
First Posted : April 8, 2021
Last Update Posted : April 20, 2021
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Condition or disease | Intervention/treatment |
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Health Care Utilization Depression Anxiety Subjective Wellbeing | Other: Medical debt forgiveness |
Study Type : | Observational |
Estimated Enrollment : | 17000 participants |
Observational Model: | Case-Control |
Time Perspective: | Cross-Sectional |
Official Title: | Health and Health Care Utilization Effects of Medical Debt Forgiveness |
Actual Study Start Date : | November 9, 2020 |
Estimated Primary Completion Date : | November 2021 |
Estimated Study Completion Date : | December 2023 |

Group/Cohort | Intervention/treatment |
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Treatment
Subjects in this "treatment" group had their medical debt forgiven by a non-profit charity, RIP Medical Debt. This protocol will administer a survey to measure subjects' health care utilization, mental health, and subjective well-being.
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Other: Medical debt forgiveness
A non-profit charity, RIP Medical Debt, bought and retired medical debt for individuals that were assigned to the treatment group. |
Control
No intervention was given to subjects in this "control" group. This protocol will administer a survey to measure subjects' health care utilization, mental health, and subjective well-being.
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- 8-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-8) Depression Scale [ Time Frame: An average of 12 months after the intervention. ]Scores on the 8-item Patient Health Questionnaire depression scale range from 0 to 24, with higher scores indicating greater severity of depression.
- Received Needed Health Care [ Time Frame: An average of 12 months after the intervention. ]Binary response to: "If you needed medical care in the last 12 months, did you get ALL the medical care you needed?" (Health Care Utilization domain)
- Received Needed Rx [ Time Frame: An average of 12 months after the intervention. ]Binary response to: "If you needed prescription medications in the last 12 months, did you get all the prescription medications you needed?" (Health Care Utilization domain)
- 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD7) Scale [ Time Frame: An average of 12 months after the intervention. ]Scores on the 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder Scale range from 0 to 21, with higher scores indicating greater severity of anxiety (Mental Health Domain).
- Stress [ Time Frame: An average of 12 months after the intervention. ]Binary response to: "Stress means a situation in which a person feels tense, restless, nervous or anxious or is unable to sleep at night because his/her mind is troubled all the time. Do you feel this kind of stress these days?" (Mental Health Domain)
- General Health [ Time Frame: An average of 12 months after the intervention. ]Response to: "In general, would you say your health is: Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, or Poor?" (General Health Domain)
- Happiness [ Time Frame: An average of 12 months after the intervention. ]Response to: "Taken all together, how would you say things are these days - would you say that you are Very Happy, Pretty Happy, or Not Too Happy?" (Subjective Wellbeing Domain)
- Problems paying other bills [ Time Frame: An average of 12 months after the intervention. ]Response to: "Besides medical bills, have you had problems paying other types of bills in the past 12 months?" (Financial Stress Domain)
- Changes in spending due to medical debt [ Time Frame: An average of 12 months after the intervention. ]Indexed response to: "As a result of medical bills have you cut back on spending in the past 12 months on i) basic necessities (like food, heat or housing, or other basic household items), ii) Big-ticket items (like cars, furniture, or appliances); iii) business investments?" (Financial Stress Domain)
- Changes in borrowing due to medical debt [ Time Frame: An average of 12 months after the intervention. ]Indexed response to: "As a result of medical bills, in the past 12 months, have you i) Increased your credit card debt, or charge card debt? ii) Borrowed money from a payday lender?; iii) Borrowed from friends and family?; iv) Used up all or most of your savings?; v) Increased debt on other lines of credit?" (Financial Stress Domain)

Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study. To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contacts provided below. For general information, Learn About Clinical Studies.
Ages Eligible for Study: | 18 Years and older (Adult, Older Adult) |
Sexes Eligible for Study: | All |
Accepts Healthy Volunteers: | Yes |
Sampling Method: | Probability Sample |
Inclusion Criteria:
- Individuals ages 18 and over who owed medical debt to FFAM, a debt collections agency
Exclusion Criteria:
- Excluded individuals who owed less than $500 in medical debt to FFAM
- Excluded individuals with missing social security numbers

To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the contact information provided by the sponsor.
Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier (NCT number): NCT04835012
Contact: Professor, PhD | (310) 206-3969 | aorkin@research.ucla.edu |
United States, California | |
UCLA IRB | Recruiting |
Los Angeles, California, United States, 90095 | |
Contact: Professor, PhD 310-206-3969 aorkin@research.ucla.edu |
Principal Investigator: | Wesley Yin, PhD | University of California, Los Angeles |
Responsible Party: | Wesley Yin, Associate Professor, University of California, Los Angeles |
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: | NCT04835012 |
Other Study ID Numbers: |
IRB#20-001700 |
First Posted: | April 8, 2021 Key Record Dates |
Last Update Posted: | April 20, 2021 |
Last Verified: | April 2021 |
Individual Participant Data (IPD) Sharing Statement: | |
Plan to Share IPD: | Yes |
Plan Description: | We will make de-identified and restricted data available to the research community through portals such as the publicly accessible Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (hosted by the University of Michigan). We will preserve the confidentiality of study participants and protect personal health information by stripping the data of personally identifying information and purging it of all personal health information, and any information that is sufficiently fine so that it could identify individuals. We will follow standard protocols, such as converting specific dates to relative dates or date intervals, and aggregating small cells. This will allow us to maximize the data available to researchers while strictly preserving confidentiality and privacy. |
Supporting Materials: |
Statistical Analysis Plan (SAP) Informed Consent Form (ICF) Analytic Code |
Time Frame: | De-identified and confidential IPD will be made available by the on-line publication date of published research. |
Access Criteria: | Access will be limited to researchers for non-commercial uses. Users will also need to certify that no attempt will be made to re-identify participants from the de-identified data. |
Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated Drug Product: | No |
Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated Device Product: | No |
Health Care Utilization Mental Health Depression |
Anxiety Subjective Wellbeing Medical Debt |
Depression Behavioral Symptoms |