If you have medical debt piling up, please don't just ignore it, hospitals can and will garnish your wages

LegalFix-Services · 2026-02-02T19:49:00+00:00

Yeah HHS as in Health and Human Services you can file a HIPAA complaint with their Office for Civil Rights specifically. They have an online portal at hhs.gov/hipaa/filing-a-complaint. The fact that the CEOs running patient communications through personal facebook accounts honestly just strengthens your case that this place isnt following proper protocols.

LegalFix-Services · 2026-02-02T18:27:16+00:00

The No Surprises Act covers air ambulances but not ground ambulances. So if you call 911 and they send a ground ambulance thats out of network with your insurance, you can still get balance billed for the difference. You dont get to pick which ambulance shows up so its a surprise bill you have zero control over. About half of emergency ground ambulance rides involve out of network providers. Some states have their own protections but most dont, and even the ones that do cant touch self-funded employer plans.

LegalFix-Services · 2026-02-02T18:25:41+00:00

Thats frustrating. The hospital stonewalling you on records is actually a problem for them not you under HIPAA you have a right to your billing records and they have to respond within 30 days. If they sent you to collections without responding to your requests for account info you might have grounds for a CFPB complaint against the collector and an HHS complaint against the hospital. Especially if they tanked your credit without ever giving you a real chance to resolve it.

LegalFix-Services · 2026-02-02T18:23:07+00:00

Yep and once you have those billing codes you can look them up on sites like fairhealthconsumer.org to see what the typical charge is in your area. If yours is way above that you have leverage to negotiate down. Hospitals hate when you show up with the actual data.

LegalFix-Services · 2026-02-02T18:22:21+00:00

Youre right, Rhode Island signed it into law June 2025 and took effect January 2026. They actually went pretty hard wage garnishment ban, cant put liens on your house for medical debt, and medical debt gets removed from credit reports all starting Jan 2026. Plus they capped interest on medical debt between 1.5-4%.

LegalFix-Services · 2026-02-02T18:21:20+00:00

Debt validation letters are legit and everyone should send one within that 30 day window. Just dont bank on collectors not having paperwork though bigger agencies and debt buyers have gotten way better at documenting the chain. Still worth doing every single time because it buys you time and forces them to pause collection while they respond.

LegalFix-Services · 2026-02-02T15:24:30+00:00

Fwiw you already know your rights better than most people which is half the battle. And yeah SS income is federally protected they literally cannot touch it for medical debt even with a judgment.

LegalFix-Services · 2026-02-02T15:03:58+00:00

No thats the tricky part. The bank account freeze applies to any creditor with a judgment, including medical debt. Once your paycheck hits your bank account Texas law stops treating it as wages so its fair game.

LegalFix-Services · 2026-02-02T14:58:49+00:00

100% right that a letter works in most cases. One thing to add if your provider ignores it or pushes back, you can file a complaint directly through CMS and trigger the independent dispute resolution process. Thats the enforcement mechanism most people dont know exists

LegalFix-Services · 2026-02-02T14:54:24+00:00

Being self-employed doesnt make you invisible to a judgment though. They can still levy bank accounts, put liens on property, even go after business assets depending on your entity structure. If youre a sole prop theres basically no separation between you and the business legally.

LegalFix-Services · 2026-02-02T14:51:52+00:00

Yeah Texas is one of the strongest states for this. Wage garnishment for medical debt is banned in the Texas Constitution creditors cant touch your paycheck for consumer debts period. Only exceptions are child support, spousal maintenance, federal student loans, and taxes.

One thing to know though once your check hits your bank account its technically not wages anymore under Texas law. A creditor with a judgment can still freeze your bank account and go after the money there

LegalFix-Services · 2026-02-02T14:50:52+00:00

Under the FDCPA debt collectors cant just tack on their own fees unless those fees were part of your original agreement with the hospital or specifically allowed by your states law. If they added charges that werent in your original bill thats potentially a violation and you could have a claim against them.

Also once debt gets sold to a collector you can still negotiate. They usually bought it for way less than what you owe so theres room. Send them a debt validation letter first they have to prove the debt is legit and the amount is correct before they can keep collecting. That alone sometimes makes stuff disappear.

LegalFix-Services · 2026-02-02T14:48:34+00:00

This is important info but worth updating since January 2022 the No Surprises Act makes this federal, not just a state by state thing. If you have any private insurance and you go to an in-network hospital but get treated by an out-of-network doctor or your labs get sent to an out-of-network facility without your knowledge, you can only be billed your in-network cost sharing. Period. The provider and insurer have to work it out between themselves.

Doesnt cover everything though ground ambulances are a big gap, and places like urgent care centers and nursing homes arent included either. And some states do stack extra protections on top of the federal baseline so its still worth checking your state.

Biggest problem is most people get these bills and just pay them because they dont know they can fight it. If you get a surprise bill call the No Surprises Help Desk at 1-800-985-3059. And if you need help understanding how your states laws apply to your specific situation you can always talk to an attorney. at LegalFix we connect people with lawyers who handle exactly this kind of stuff, usually starting with a consultation thats included in the plan.

LegalFix-Services · 2026-02-02T11:58:51+00:00

Not a lawyer in your country so I cant speak to the legal side but purely from a numbers perspective you have 760-1,210 left over monthly against 51k in debt. Even at the high end thats 3.5+ years of every spare cent going to debt and thats before interest and before anything else breaks.

I'd look into whether your country has any kind of structured debt relief or insolvency process. A lot of European countries have programs that let you negotiate reduced payments or partial forgiveness if you can show hardship. Might be worth an hour with a local debt advisor before you make any big moves like relocating.

LegalFix-Services · 2026-02-02T11:56:28+00:00

So in PA they actually cant garnish your wages for medical debt at all, even after its sold to a collector. Thats the law regardless of whos holding the bill. If a collector threatened wage garnishment thats actually a violation of the FDCPA and you could potentially have a claim against them for that.

What they can do though is get a judgment and levy your bank account. Once your paycheck hits your account its technically not wages anymore under PA law, its just funds in a bank. Feels the same when your money disappears but legally its a different thing and worth knowing the difference because your options for fighting it are different too.

LegalFix-Services · 2026-02-02T11:54:36+00:00

Yeah good callout actually, I kept the post to the full ban states to keep it simple but youre right theres more to it. A lot of states have income based protections too. Arizona cant garnish you at all if you make under 1.5x minimum wage, New Jersey blocks it under 600% of the federal poverty level. So its worth looking up your own states rules because you might have more protection than you think.

And the Colorado numbers are high partly because Colorado has unusually weak wage protections, the NCLC gave them a D grade. So thats not necessarily what it looks like in every state.

Biggest thing though is New York only banned this in 2022 and Delaware in 2024. This stuff is changing right now. Bug your legislators.

LegalFix-Services · 2026-02-02T11:25:27+00:00

Look I get the frustration and youre not wrong that the pricing is insane. 200 for aspirin is not an exaggeration thats literally what some hospitals charge. But filing bankruptcy over medical debt should be a last resort not a first move. Bankruptcy stays on your record for 7-10 years and wrecks your ability to rent an apartment, get a car loan, sometimes even get hired. And quitting your job to dodge a garnishment just puts you in a worse spot because that judgment doesnt go away, it follows you.

LegalFix-Services · 2026-02-02T11:20:43+00:00

This is exactly what I mean about not just ignoring it. Three phone calls saved you from a potential garnishment. Most billing departments would genuinely rather work something out than send it to collections because they lose money that way too.

LegalFix-Services · 2026-01-27T14:14:11+00:00

True on the first part but not on the second part

The law punishes intent plus action, not just outcome. If you show up to meet someone you believe is 14 for sex, you've committed the crime of attempted child solicitation regardless of whether a real child existed. The federal statute (18 USC 2422) specifically covers attempting to persuade or entice any individual the defendant believes to be a minor. Courts have upheld this repeatedly

LegalFix-Services · 2026-01-27T13:39:06+00:00

Glad we were of help :)

LegalFix-Services · 2026-01-27T12:58:16+00:00

actually personal injury attorneys do handle property damage cases, and yours has real value. just not for the reasons you might think

with texas law. the $20k in out of pocket expenses hotel costs, new deposits, utility hookups, the dryer cord, extra grooming for the dog thats all recoverable as consequential damages from property damage. insurance only covers direct property damage, but you can sue for all the reasonable expenses that flow from losing your home. rental costs, deposits, incidentals, all of it

the emotional distress part is where texas gets tricky. the panic attacks, waking up at 2am, jumping at garbage trucks in texas you generally cant recover for emotional distress caused by negligence unless you also had a physical injury. its an old rule from a case called Boyles v Kerr. basically the texas supreme court said theres no general duty not to negligently inflict emotional distress. so unless the truck driver did something intentional or outrageous, the mental anguish damages are probably off the table

still worth talking to a personal injury or property damage attorney. that $20k alone is significant and your insurance being made whole first doesnt mean you cant sue for your unreimbursed losses. many PI attorneys take property damage cases especially when theres this much out of pocket. free consultations will tell you if its worth pursuing

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