A hospital in Memphis will fully clear or significantly reduce the unpaid debt owed by about 7,000 patients, the Memphis Commercial Appeal newspaper in Tennessee reports.

The debt reductions apply to patients engaged in legal proceedings with Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, the largest nonprofit health care system in Memphis.

The move comes after reporting from ProPublica earlier this year revealed the hospital system regularly sued low-income patients over unpaid medical bills. The reporting discovered that the nonprofit filed more than 8,300 lawsuits against patients from 2014 to 2018.

The hospital announced policy changes in July in response to the reporting, changes that the hospital now says are taking effect.

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“We are implementing the policies and practices we announced in July, and we have reached out individually to patients who currently have legal proceedings to provide information related to their specific situation,” a health system spokesperson told the Commercial Appeal in a statement. “Formal letters to those patients were mailed last week.”

The Hill has reached out to Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare for comment.

With the policy change implemented, the hospital will no longer pursue actions to collect from patients making up to 250 percent of the federal poverty guidelines, meaning families of three making $53,000 or below in income are eligible for financial assistance, CEO Michael Ugwueke said when the policy change was announced, according to the news outlet.

The total amount of the debt that would be forgiven under the new policy was not made public.