Medical Debt Interest Caps and Collection Restrictions by State
Since 2022, at least nine states have passed medical-debt-specific consumer protection statutes on top of ordinary debt-collection law: a cap on the interest rate a hospital or debt buyer may charge on medical debt, a minimum waiting period before debt can be sold or a suit filed, a ban on wage garnishment or a lien on the patient's home for medical debt, or a dollar floor below which a hospital may not sue at all. Each state uses a different mechanism and a different number, several were enacted or took effect in the last 12 months (Louisiana, Rhode Island, Virginia, Maryland, Maine, Colorado, New Jersey, New York), and the only free 50-state assembly (Commonwealth Fund, researched through June 2025) already predates most of them. A patient or advocate asking 'can they charge me interest on this hospital bill' or 'can they garnish my wages for this' gets a different, checkable, statute-backed answer depending on the state.
The data
| jurisdiction | interest rate cap | statute citation | effective date | wage garnishment restriction | property lien restriction | collection delay or suit restriction |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado | THREE PERCENT PER ANNUM | C.R.S. 5-12-102(5)(a) | ||||
| Louisiana | three percent per annum | La. R.S. 51:1503 | This Act shall become effective upon signature by the governor | |||
| Maine | 9-A M.R.S.A. Sec. 5-116-A(5), (6) (2026 Me. Laws ch. 649) | The garnishment of a consumer's salary or wages may not be issued for a judgment in any action in which the claim against the consumer is based on medical debt | An execution against a consumer's principal place of residence may not be filed for a judgment in any action in which the claim against the consumer is based on medical debt | |||
| Maryland | Md. Code, Health-General § 19–214.2(b)(6), (f)(2), (f)(4) | A hospital may not request a writ of garnishment of wages or file an action that would result in an attachment of wages against a patient to collect debt owed on a hospital bill if the patient is eligible for free or reduced–cost care under § 19–214.1 of this subtitle. | A hospital may not request a lien against a patient’s primary residence in an action to collect debt owed on a hospital bill. | Prohibit the hospital from filing a civil action to collect a debt against a patient whose outstanding debt is at or below $500 | ||
| New Jersey | three percent per annum | N.J.S.A. 56:11-59, 56:11-60 (P.L.2024, c.48) | Sections 3 and 7 of this act shall take effect immediately and the remainder of this act shall take effect one year following the date of enactment. Approved July 22, 2024. | garnish the wages of a patient with annual income less than 600 percent of the federal poverty level to collect medical debt owed by that patient | until 120 days after the first bill for a medical debt has been sent and the creditor or debt collector has offered the patient who owes the medical debt a reasonable payment plan | |
| New York | N.Y. C.P.L.R. 5201(b), 5231(b)(iv) (2022 N.Y. Laws ch. 648) | This act shall take effect immediately | no amount shall be imposed in judgments arising from a medical debt action brought by a hospital licensed under article twenty-eight of the public health law or a health care professional authorized under title eight of the education law. | No property lien shall be entered or enforced against a debtor’s primary residence in an action arising from a medical debt and brought by a hospital licensed under article twenty-eight of the public health law or a health care professional authorized under title eight of the education law. | ||
| Rhode Island | Interest on medical debt shall be limited to the rate of interest equal to the weekly average one-year constant maturity Treasury yield, but not less than one and a half percent per annum (1.5% p.a.) nor more than four percent per annum (4% p.a.) | R.I. Gen. Laws Sec. 6-26-11 | P.L. 2025, ch. 302, § 1, effective June 26, 2025; P.L. 2025, ch. 303, § 1, effective June 26, 2025. | |||
| Virginia | No large health care facility or medical debt buyer shall charge a patient any interest or late fees on medical debt until 90 days following the due date applicable to the final invoice, and no such interest or late fees shall exceed three percent of the amount of such medical debt per annum | Va. Code Sec. 59.1-612 | Garnishing the wages of any individual qualifying for financial assistance under the financial assistance policy applicable to the underlying medical debt | 3. Foreclosing on an individual's real property; 4. Placing a lien on an individual's personal property | No medical creditor or medical debt collector shall take any extraordinary collection action until 120 days following the due date applicable to the final invoice for a health care service | |
| Washington | RCW 70.54.470 | until at least one hundred twenty days after the initial billing statement for that medical debt has been transmitted to the patient or other responsible party |
Where this came from
Every record above links the page it was taken from and quotes the sentence that states it. These are the 11 sources this dataset was assembled from.
- leg.colorado.govhttps://leg.colorado.gov/sites/default/files/2023a_093_signed.pdf
- legis.la.govhttps://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1481256
- legislature.maine.govhttps://legislature.maine.gov/legis/bills/getPDF.asp?paper=SP0818&item=3&snum=132
- mgaleg.maryland.govhttps://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Laws/StatuteText?article=ghg§ion=19-214.2&enactments=false
- pub.njleg.govhttps://pub.njleg.gov/Bills/2024/PL24/48_.HTM
- newyork.public.lawhttps://newyork.public.law/laws/n.y._civil_practice_law_and_rules_section_5201
- newyork.public.lawhttps://newyork.public.law/laws/n.y._civil_practice_law_and_rules_section_5231
- assembly.state.ny.ushttps://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?default_fld=&leg_video=&bn=A07363&term=2021&Summary=Y&Actions=Y&Text=Y
- webserver.rilegislature.govhttp://webserver.rilegislature.gov/Statutes/TITLE6/6-26/6-26-11.htm
- law.lis.virginia.govhttps://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/59.1-612/
- app.leg.wa.govhttps://app.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=70.54.470
Machine-readable
- data.jsonThe whole dataset — every record with its source URL and source quote.
- Open Knowledge Format bundleOne JSON object per line — every record's frontmatter and quoted span exactly as it is held here, in one fetch.
- data.csvThe same records as one flat table, for a spreadsheet or a dataframe. The last four columns are the source URL, the quoted sentence it was read from, the date we last checked it, and which columns are our reading rather than the page's words.
- How this is made and checkedWhat "verified against source" does and does not mean.
From your own code
Same records, same quotes, without scraping the page: refsource is on PyPI and npm. Each value comes back carrying the URL it was read from and the sentence on that page that states it — .source and .quote sit on the value itself rather than in a side channel, so the checking step is available instead of skipped.
pip install refsource
refsource lookup medical-debt-collection-protections-by-state jurisdiction=Colorado
npx -y refsource lookup medical-debt-collection-protections-by-state jurisdiction=ColoradoSet your AI assistant up to use this
Two files and no account. Put this in .mcp.json at the root of your project — Claude Code, Cursor, Windsurf, VS Code and Codex all read that file — and your assistant can look this dataset up instead of recalling it. The server is remote, keyless and read-only.
{
"mcpServers": {
"referencesource": {
"type": "http",
"url": "https://referencesource.org/mcp"
}
}
}Add to Cursor · or, on the command line: claude mcp add --transport http referencesource https://referencesource.org/mcp --scope project
Then one line in the project's CLAUDE.md or AGENTS.md, so the assistant knows when to reach for it:
When a question needs "Medical Debt Interest Caps and Collection Restrictions by State", call the referencesource MCP server at https://referencesource.org/mcp (tool `search_records`, dataset_slug `medical-debt-collection-protections-by-state`) instead of answering from memory — every record it returns carries its source URL and a verbatim quote from that page.What each tool does, and the servers built over single registers: Connect your AI assistant.