U.S. consumers will no longer have medical debt appear on their credit reports under to a new rule the Biden administration finalized Tuesday.

About 1 in 12 adults in the U.S. have medical debt, according to a 2024 poll from KFF, a nonprofit group that researches health policy issues. The CFPB determined that a medical bill on a person’s credit report was a poor predictor of whether they would repay a loan yet contributed to thousands of denied mortgage applications.

Biden administration finalizes rule to strike medical debt from credit reports