- Case
- Fair Medical Debt Reporting Act (S4907-A / A6275-A)
- Source
- New York State Legislature
- Citation
- 2023 N.Y. Laws ch. 727 (adding N.Y. Pub. Health Law §§ 4925-4927 and amending N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law §§ 380-a, 380-j)
- Decided
- December 13, 2023
- Bottom line
- In New York, medical debt from covered providers should not appear on your credit report, and a provider or collector that reports it risks voiding the debt.
Background
New York has its own Fair Credit Reporting Act, in General Business Law Article 25, which limits what consumer reporting agencies may report or keep in a consumer’s file. The national bureaus had voluntarily stopped reporting paid medical collections and those under $500, but larger unpaid medical bills could still appear. According to commentary on the law, the Governor’s announcement cited a study finding about 740,000 New Yorkers had medical debt on their credit reports.
The Fair Medical Debt Reporting Act was introduced in the Senate in February 2023, passed the Senate on May 31 and the Assembly on June 20, and was signed by Governor Kathy Hochul on December 13, 2023, as Chapter 727 of the Laws of 2023.
What the rule does
The act took effect immediately. It works on three levels.
Providers and their collectors. A new Public Health Law Article 49-A applies to hospitals licensed under Article 28 of the Public Health Law, health care professionals authorized under Title 8 of the Education Law, and certified ambulance services. Each “shall not furnish any portion of a medical debt to a consumer reporting agency.” Each must also include, in any contract with a company that buys or collects its medical debt, a provision prohibiting that company from reporting the debt.
The penalty: a void debt. The enforcement section is short: “Any portion of a medical debt that is furnished to a consumer reporting agency shall be void.”
Credit bureaus. The act amended General Business Law § 380-j(a), so that no consumer reporting agency shall “report or maintain in the file on a consumer” information “relative to a medical debt.” It also added medical debt “regardless of the date it was incurred” to the list of items barred from consumer reports in § 380-j(f).
Medical debt means an obligation “to pay any amount whatsoever” for health care services, products, or devices from a covered provider. In the public health law provisions, debt on an ordinary credit card is excluded, but medical credit cards issued specifically for health care are covered.
Later developments. In October 2025, the CFPB issued an interpretive rule taking the position that the FCRA preempts state laws barring categories of information, such as medical debt, from credit reports. A collection industry trade group and a member company have sued to block Colorado’s similar 2023 law, and in 2026 a federal court in Texas held a Texas medical debt reporting law preempted. We have not found a ruling on the New York act’s validity as of this update, but its credit bureau provisions face the same preemption arguments.
Our take
New York’s approach is notable because it does not depend only on regulating the bureaus. By barring providers from furnishing medical debt, requiring their collectors to agree not to report, and voiding debt that is reported anyway, the law gives the people who control the data a strong reason not to send it. That design may also matter if courts accept preemption arguments aimed at limits on what bureaus can report, although providers and collectors may raise their own preemption defenses.
There are fair counterarguments. Commentators have predicted that providers may rely more on lawsuits and wage garnishment if credit reporting is off the table. Consumers should remember that the law limits reporting; it does not cancel medical bills that have not been reported.
What it means if your report is wrong
If you live in New York and see medical debt on your credit report, dispute it in writing with each bureau and with the collector, and cite the Fair Medical Debt Reporting Act. Keep a copy of the report showing the debt, since reporting by a covered provider or its collector may make the reported debt void. Also check for errors that matter in any state, such as medical bills that were paid, covered by insurance, or not yours.
A free case review can assess how this law affects a claim, and there is no fee unless we win.
Sources
Primary
Commentary we reviewed
- Commentary: New York bans reporting of medical debt effective immediately (Consumer Financial Services Law Monitor, Troutman Pepper Locke)
- Commentary: CO and NY enact laws to prevent reporting of medical debt to credit bureaus (Consumer Finance Monitor, Ballard Spahr)
Updated November 1, 2026. "Our take" is the firm's opinion. This page is general information, not legal advice, and later decisions may change the law.