Month: January 2025

Marshfield Clinic Health System has joined the largest rural health system in the United States.

The central Wisconsin-based health clinic announced the completed merger with Sanford Health on Thursday, nearly six months after it was first reported. Marshfield Clinic will become a region of Sanford Health, according to a press release, and the Marshfield brand “will continue to be predominant” at locations in the region. Sanford is based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and has locations across the Dakotas, as well as in Iowa, Minnesota and other states.

According to the press release, Marshfield Clinic patients will continue to receive care from the same providers with no immediate changes.

Marshfield Clinic had previously attempted to merge with Duluth-based Essentia Health before the partnership fell through a year ago.

Wisconsin has seen a number of health care system mergers in recent years, following a national trend of rapid consolidation over the last decade. Researchers have found hospital mergers tend to increase health care prices, while having a negligible effect on patient care.

During the first nine months of 2024, lenders wrote off more than $46 billion in seriously delinquent credit card loans, according to a report from the Financial Times citing data analyzed by BankRegData. That’s an increase of 50% from the first three quarters of 2023, and the highest since 2010.

The New York Federal Reserve reported last month that Americans’ credit card debt hit another record high in September, climbing to $1.17 trillion during the third quarter and marking the highest level on record in Fed data dating back to 2003.

The report showed total household debt also climbed to a new high of $17.94 trillion, along with balances on mortgages ($12.59 trillion), auto loans ($1.64 trillion) and student loan balances ($1.61 trillion).

In a call discussing the report following its release, New York Fed researchers discussed the growth in debt balances across the board, the persistent and “concerning” growth in auto loan and credit card delinquencies, and how stresses and high delinquency rates are concentrated among younger borrowers.

“We’ve seen notably elevated flows into delinquency, particularly for credit cards as well as auto loans during the past few years,” one researcher said. “This is something that we have been pointing to as a reason for concern — something to keep an eye on.”