State limits on medical debt interest, garnishment and lawsuits
What a hospital or debt collector may legally do to collect a medical bill in this state, and when. A wave of state laws enacted between 2025 and 2026 put dollar and day limits on medical-debt collection that a generic 'debt collection laws' page does not carry, and every one is genuinely different in shape, not just amount: Louisiana caps interest on medically-necessary debt at 3% per annum (R.S. 51:1503, enacted 2026); Virginia caps it at 3% but only after a 90-day grace period (Va. Code 59.1-612); Rhode Island floats the cap to the one-year Treasury yield, collared between 1.5% and 4% (R.I. Gen. Laws 6-26-11); Maryland bars a hospital from suing over a bill of $500 or less and from charging interest for 240 days (Health-General 19-214.2); Washington bars selling or assigning the debt to a collection agency for the first 120 days (RCW 70.54.470); Maine bans a debt collector from charging any interest on medical debt at all, a cap of zero rather than a low rate (32 M.R.S. §11013). Virginia is also the state to read for garnishment: §59.1-612(B) is the one flat ban on foreclosing, lien-placing, arrest and wage garnishment found in these six sources. One record per state per protection actually enacted, each a different mechanism -- an interest cap, a delay, a dollar floor, an outright ban -- because collapsing them into one 'protection level' loses the thing a patient or a collector actually needs to check. Answers 'can a hospital charge interest on my bill', 'how long before my medical bill can be sent to collections in this state', 'can my wages be garnished for a hospital bill', 'is there a minimum amount before a hospital can sue me'. Adjacent to state-hospital-financial-assistance-thresholds (the income test for free or discounted care, a different question from what happens once a debt exists) and wage-garnishment-exemption-thresholds-by-state (the general garnishment floor, not medical-specific). No national compilation was found with statutory citations: WageGarnishmentLaws.com's 2026 guide covers garnishment only, in prose, with no statute numbers and no interest-cap or lawsuit-threshold coverage; NCLC's well-kept article covers credit-reporting bans, a different sub-topic, not interest/garnishment/lawsuit rules. Six states enacted a relevant law in the 2025-2026 sessions alone (a United States of Care count), so this is actively moving and most existing summaries are already behind at least one state's newest session.
The data
| State | Statute | Interest rate cap | Effective date | Notes | Delay before interest may start | Minimum debt before a lawsuit is allowed | Limit on selling the debt or garnishing wages |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Louisiana | R.S. 51:1501 through 1504 | three percent per annum | effective upon signature by the governor | ||||
| Maine | §11013 | Notwithstanding paragraph A, charging any interest on debt that the debt collector knows is medical debt; | a debt collector may not collect or attempt to collect a debt for medical expenses against a consumer who has been determined to be qualified for charity care under Title 22, section 1716‑A or against a consumer who would have been determined to be qualified for charity care under Title 22, section 1716‑A but did not apply for good cause. | ||||
| Maryland | §19–214.2 | the hospital may not request the issuance of or otherwise knowingly take action that would cause a court to issue: 1. A body attachment against a patient; or 2. An arrest warrant against a patient. | The determination of possible interest payments for patients who do not qualify for free or reduced–cost care, which may not begin before 240 days after the initial bill is provided; | (6) Prohibit the hospital from filing a civil action to collect a debt against a patient whose outstanding debt is at or below $500; | (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. | ||
| Rhode Island | R.I. Gen. Laws § 6-26-11 | 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.) as published by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, for the calendar week preceding the date when the consumer was first provided with a bill. | effective June 26, 2025; P.L. 2025, ch. 303, § 1, effective June 26, 2025. | The rate of interest provided in subsection (b) of this section shall only be applied to new debt incurred after June 26, 2025. | |||
| Virginia | § 59.1-612 | no such interest or late fees shall exceed three percent of the amount of such medical debt per annum | E. 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. | until 90 days following the due date applicable to the final invoice | B. No medical creditor or medical debt collector shall use any of the following extraordinary collection actions to collect medical debts: 1. Causing an individual's arrest; 2. Causing an individual to be subject to a writ of body attachment; 3. Foreclosing on an individual's real property; 4. Placing a lien on an individual's personal property; or 5. Garnishing the wages of any individual qualifying for financial assistance under the financial assistance policy applicable to the underlying medical debt. | ||
| Washington | RCW 70.54.470 | (c) "Medical debt" has the same meaning as provided in RCW 19.16.100 . | No health care provider or health care facility may sell or assign medical debt to any person licensed under chapter 19.16 RCW 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 6 sources this dataset was assembled from.
- legis.la.govhttps://www.legis.la.gov/legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=1479321
- legislature.maine.govhttps://legislature.maine.gov/statutes/32/title32sec11013.html
- mgaleg.maryland.govhttps://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Laws/StatuteText?article=ghg§ion=19-214.2&enactments=false
- webserver.rilegislature.govhttps://webserver.rilegislature.gov/Statutes/TITLE6/6-26/6-26-11.htm
- law.lis.virginia.govhttps://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacodefull/title59.1/chapter59/
- 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.
- 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-restrictions-by-state state=Louisiana
npx -y refsource lookup medical-debt-collection-restrictions-by-state state=Louisiana