Medical Debt Should Not Wreck Your Credit

Issue 01 • July 3, 2026

Welcome to The Recovery Brief — a short, occasional update from Rausa Russo Law, PLLC on the money side of getting hurt: medical debt, collections, and credit reporting. A reminder on what we do: we do not practice personal injury law. We refer injury claims to a trusted personal-injury attorney, and we handle the consumer-protection problems that so often come with an injury.

This Issue: Medical Debt Should Not Wreck Your Credit

If you were injured and accident-related medical bills have landed in collections, know that the rules have shifted in your favor. New York's Fair Medical Debt Reporting Act now generally bars credit bureaus from reporting a New York consumer's medical debt (with limited exceptions, such as debt charged to a general-purpose credit card), and the national bureaus already remove paid and smaller medical collections. If medical debt is still showing up on your report, it may be there in error — and you can dispute it. Read the full article →

If a Collector Is Calling

You have rights under the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, including the right to dispute a debt and make the collector verify it before continuing. If a collector is harassing you over accident bills, that can be its own claim. More on debt-collector harassment →

Injured and dealing with this? Rausa Russo Law can help on the consumer-protection side and connect you with a personal-injury attorney for the claim itself.