Medical debt: it cannot go on your credit report

It is a separation between getting sick and having bad credit. Act 98-2026 takes medical-expense debts out of the credit report: it bars an information provider from reporting them to credit agencies, and bars a collection agency from telling you they will appear there or affect your score.

Any consumer in Puerto Rico with a medical-expense debt. This guide is informational: there is nothing to apply for, because the law operates as a prohibition on whoever reports and whoever collects.

• That it be a medical-expense debt as Article 3(c) defines it: that directly owed to a medical services provider, including unpaid overdue medical bills.Verified against the official source

• None. The law imposes prohibitions on information providers and collection agencies; it creates no application for the consumer to file.

1. 1

   Step 1: Know what counts as medical-expense debt

   Article 3(c) defines it as that directly owed to a medical services provider, and breaks it into two. First, medical debt information: that related to the consumer’s debt owed to a person whose principal activity is providing medical services, products or devices, or their agent or assignee, and it includes “among others, unpaid overdue medical bills”. Second, prescription or over-the-counter medicines or vaccines specially designed to treat chronic conditions or catastrophic or terminal illnesses.

2. 2

   Step 2: Nobody may report it to the credit bureau

   The new Article 6-A is short and categorical: no information provider may make an investigative report or submit to credit reporting agencies adverse information of a consumer consisting of or directly related to medical-expense debts. It reaches both the investigative report and the sending of adverse information.

3. 3

   Step 3: The collector may not investigate you over that debt

   The new subsection 14 of Article 17 of Act 143-1968 expressly forbids it: no collection agency may obtain information about a consumer in connection with an attempt to collect a medical-expense debt, as defined in Article 3 of Act 364-2000.

4. 4

   Step 4: And it may not threaten you with your score

   Subsection 15 closes the other flank, the one most used on the phone: no collection agency may make a false, misleading or deceptive representation that a medical-expense debt will be included in a consumer report or taken into account in the consumer’s credit score. If they say it to you, the law names it as a prohibited practice.

5. 5

   Step 5: It is already in force

   Section 4 provides that the Act takes effect immediately upon approval. There is no transition period and no pending regulation written into the text.

There is nowhere to apply. Credit reporting agencies and collection agencies are regulated by the Department of Consumer Affairs, which is where complaints against them are filed.

• Thinking it covers only hospital bills: the definition includes medical services, products and devices, and medicines or vaccines for chronic, catastrophic or terminal conditions.
• Believing the collector who says it will hurt your credit: subsection 15 names that statement as a prohibited practice.
• Assuming the collector may investigate you anyway: subsection 14 forbids obtaining information about you in connection with collecting a medical debt.
• Confusing the reporting ban with the debt disappearing: the law takes the debt off the credit report, it does not cancel it.
• Expecting the Act to carry its own fine: it publishes no remedy or penalty; the practical route is a DACO complaint.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Departamento de Asuntos del Consumidor (DACO)

  DACO

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov