Federal court reverses Biden-era rule on medical debt, surprising dental financial data for Q2 of 2025

Federal court blocks rule to erase medical debt from credit reports

Last week, a federal judge in Texas reversed a rule put into place by the Biden administration in January that aimed to remove medical debt from credit reports. Sean Jordan, a US district court judge appointed by Donald Trump, said the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) cannot remove medical debt from credit reports according to the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Doing so would be acting beyond the CFPB's authority.¹

This reversal comes after Trump's request for the CFPB to shut down nearly all of its operations earlier this year. Under orders to "cease all supervision and examination activity,"² the CFPB-which was designed to protect consumers after the 2008 recession-would essentially be rendered defunct.

According to AP News, wiping medical debt from credit reports was expected to increase families' credit scores by an average of 20 points. The rule would have alleviated nearly $50 billion in medical debt from 15 million Americans.¹

Last year, Experian, Equifax and TransUnion announced that they would remove medical collections under $500 from consumer credit reports-and the CFPB's rule aimed to wipe outstanding medical bills from credit reports. However, the ADA worried credit report unions would be prohibited from including medical debts when running credit checks. In a letter from August of 2024, they said: "The proposed rule may inadvertently reduce the incentive for patients to prioritize the payment of their dental bills, knowing that nonpayment will not affect their credit scores."³

The court's recent decision may disproportionately impact people of color, too; data from the CFPB shows 28% of Black Americans and 22% of Latino Americans carry medical debt compared to 17% of white people.¹

Learn more about the effects of reversing this Biden-era rule from AP News.

How are dentists faring in 2025?

A new report from the ADA's Health Policy Institute has gathered crucial data on consumer dental spending, dentists' economic confidence, and the dental job market in Q2 of 2025.

Clinician confidence

Overall, dentists are more skeptical than confident about the current US economy. This is primarily due to the current administration, tariff concerns, impending inflation, geopolitical turmoil, and a general sense of uncertainty. However, those who are confident point to high patient demand, US economic resiliency, and the Trump administration as three of their main reasons.⁴

Consumer spending

Consumer dental spending is incrementally increasing. As of May 2025, it has risen 8% from pre-pandemic days, 4% over the past 12 months, and 3% since the beginning of the year. These numbers are still lagging compared to consumers' composite healthcare spending, which has grown by 20% since COVID-19. Spending on physician services has also grown 22% over the past five years.⁴

Job market and economics

Although the economy added 147,000 jobs in June, the dental sector is not seeing any significant growth. In fact, the number of jobs in the dental industry decreased by 0.2% from the previous month. Additionally, the dental staffing shortage is still a major problem; practices report having a "very or "extremely" challenging time recruiting staff-in Q2 of 2025, 91.7% of respondents said this about finding dental hygienists and 70.9% said this about dental assistants.⁴

Finally, prices for dental office expenses have steadily increased since January. Although staff wages have also increased slightly (20.6% of respondents reported wages that increased by more than 10%), 27.1% said the cost of supplies/materials and 24.7% said the cost of equipment also increased by over 10%.⁴

You can read the complete findings from the ADA's State of the US Dental Economy report.

References

1. Morga A, Lewis C. Federal judge reverses rule that would have removed medical debt from credit reports. AP News. July 15, 2025, https://apnews.com/article/cfpb-medical-debt-credit-reports-41f212ee6b89f9902deb267d75ab8443

2. Rugaber C. Trump administration orders consumer protection agency to stop work, closes building. AP News. February 9, 2025. https://apnews.com/article/trump-consumer-protection-cease-1b93c60a773b6b5ee629e769ae6850e9

3. Anderon O. Bureau prohibits medical debt on credit reports. ADA News. January 10, 2025. https://adanews.ada.org/ada-news/2025/january/bureau-prohibits-medical-debt-on-credit-reports/?utm_source=beehiiv&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=weekly-digest

4. The state of the US dental economy. American Dental Association. July 17, 2025. https://www.ada.org/resources/research/health-policy-institute/dental-care-market/q2-2025-state-of-us-dental-economy