Debt, Credit & Consumer Protection · Surprise rank #29
Medical Debt? Hospitals and Doctors Can’t Take Your Wages or Put a Claim on Your Home
State law explicitly prohibits covered hospitals and healthcare professionals from using wage garnishment or placing liens on your primary residence to collect medical debt.
Who
People owing qualifying medical debt.
What to do
Start here: Contact a consumer-law or health-law attorney immediately if threatened with wage garnishment or a home lien for medical debt.
Eligibility: Debt must be covered medical debt and the creditor/action must fall within the statute.
What you get
New York limits medical creditors' ability to garnish wages and bars hospitals and health-care professionals from placing liens on a patient's primary residence for medical debt.
Benefit: Protection of wages and a primary home from specified medical-debt collection methods.
Possible value: Potentially thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars in protected income or home equity.
Good to know
Important: The debt is not automatically erased; lawsuits and other lawful collection may remain possible.
Availability: Assert before or promptly after collection action.
Why people miss it: Collection notices rarely explain that medical creditors face rules beyond ordinary judgment creditors.
Sources reviewed: Aug 2, 2026