Kayce Atencio, who has been shadowed by medical debt for most of his adult life, had been unable to rent an apartment because of poor credit due to medical debt, he said. Recent reporting changes by credit rating agencies have removed many debts from consumer credit reports and lifted scores for millions, a new study finds. Rachel Woolf for KFF Health News hide caption
Yazmin Lopez, here at home in Madison, Wis., first learned about credit scores from a personal finance book she picked up at Goodwill a few years after coming to the U.S. as a teenager. Lianne Milton for NPR hide caption
Roughly 40 million Americans are likely to see their credit scores drop by 20 points or more. An equal number should go up by as much. courtneyk/Getty Images hide caption
Equifax says the newly identified users had some driver's license information stolen but not their Social Security numbers. Mike Stewart/AP hide caption
Half of all the debt that appears on credit reports is related to medical expenses, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. PeopleImages/Getty Images hide caption
