In June, Maine and Oregon joined a growing list of states that now prohibit the reporting of medical debt to a consumer reporting agency.
On June 9, 2025, the governor of Maine signed into law LD558, which amends the Maine Fair Credit Reporting Act to prohibit medical creditors, debt collectors and debt buyers from reporting a consumer’s medical debt to a consumer reporting agency. Under the Maine law, a “medical creditor” is defined as “an entity that provides health care services and to whom a consumer incurs medical debt or an entity that provided health care services to a consumer and to whom the consumer previously owed medical debt if the medical debt has been purchased by one or more debt buyers.” Additionally, the Maine law forbids consumer reporting agencies from reporting medical debt on consumer reports. Consumers whose medical debt is reported in violation of the new amendments can seek civil remedies against the medical creditor, debt collector, debt buyer, or consumer reporting agency that reported the medical debt pursuant to the Maine Fair Credit Reporting Act for actual damages, attorneys’ fees and costs, and either treble damages or statutory damages depending on whether the violation was willful or negligent.
On June 17, 2025, the governor of Oregon signed into law SB0605, amending current Oregon statute 646A.677 to ban the reporting of medical debt owed by Oregon residents to any consumer reporting agency. The Oregon law is more expansive than the new Maine law in that it prohibits any “person” from “report[ing] to a consumer reporting agency the amount or existence of any medical debt” that a resident of Oregon “owes or is alleged to owe.” The law applies to medical debt that is owed to health care providers, as well as owed to credit cards issued for the purpose of covering medical expenses. The new law also states that consumer reporting agencies “may not include in a consumer report an item that the consumer reporting agency knows or reasonably should know is medical debt.”
The new Oregon law allows individuals to bring a private civil action pursuant to Oregon’s Unlawful Trade Practices Act against any violator of the statute. In a civil action, “in addition to any other relief a court may grant, the court may declare the medical debt void and uncollectible.”
Maine and Oregon join New York, California, Illinois, New Jersey, Minnesota, Virginia, Colorado, Rhode Island, and Vermont in enacting laws that prohibit or restrict what information regarding medical debt, if any, can be reported to consumer reporting agencies. The increase in states enacting consumer protection laws targeting medical debt is unsurprising in light of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (“CFPB”) failure to implement a federal rule on this topic.
As previously reported, in January 2025, the CFPB passed a federal rule banning the reporting of individuals’ medical debt on consumer credit reports that was set to become effective in March 2025. The CFPB, however, pursuant to a January 20, 2025 Executive Order, adjourned the implementation of the rule. Recently, the CFPB sided with creditor industry groups that filed lawsuits to halt the federal rule and asked a federal court to allow it to withdraw the federal rule banning reporting of consumer medical debt.
Health care providers delivering services to residents of Maine or Oregon, as well as debt collectors and debt buyers that perform services in these states, should ensure that their current policies regarding the reporting of consumer medical debt align with the new laws. Given the increasing number of jurisdictions enacting laws that ban the reporting of consumer medical debt and the potential for some of those laws to prevent the collection of consumer medical debts that are reported to a consumer reporting agency and/or expose the reporter of the medical debt to civil litigation and a potential monetary judgment against it, entities providing health care services and/or engaging in the collection of consumer medical debt need to remain abreast of the consumer protection laws in the states in which they provide services and adjust their practices accordingly.
