The presence of abnormal amounts of bilirubin in the blood stream and skin, 
usually referred to as hyperbilirubinemia, is associated with a wide range of 
pathologies that can pose considerable risks for human health. The early and 
effective screening of the severity degrees of this medical condition can play 
an important role on the selection of the appropriate treatment for the 
associated pathologies. This, in turn, can minimize the need for more aggressive 
and costly therapeutic interventions which can themselves pose considerable 
risks for morbidity and mortality. The current noninvasive protocols used to 
differentiate these severity degrees, however, are hindered by the relatively 
limited knowledge about the impact of different amounts of extravascular 
bilirubin on skin spectral responses and on the onset of jaundice, the resulting 
yellow-tinted skin appearance. In this paper, we address this open problem 
through controlled in silico experiments supported by measured data provided in 
the related literature. Our experimental findings bring biophysically-based 
insights to bear on the clarification of this biomedical entanglement, and 
unveil optical features that can potentially lead to more effective screening 
protocols for the noninvasive differentiation and monitoring of variable degrees 
of hyperbilirubinemia severity.