Can I File Bankruptcy on Medical Bills?
Yes. Medical bills are ordinary unsecured debt, and both Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 bankruptcy wipe them out, no matter how large the balance. There is no separate “medical bankruptcy” — you file a regular case that lists the hospital, the doctors, and any collection agency alongside your other debts, and the discharge ends their right to collect from you.
Why Medical Debt Is Wiped Out in Bankruptcy
The Bankruptcy Code works by listing the debts that survive a discharge, not the ones that are erased. That list is 11 U.S.C. § 523(a), and it covers things like recent taxes, child support and alimony, most student loans, criminal fines, and debts from drunk-driving injuries. Medical bills appear nowhere on it. A hospital bill, a surgeon’s bill, an ambulance charge, lab work, dental work, and the balance a collection agency bought for pennies are all general unsecured debt, the same category as credit cards, and they are discharged under § 727 in Chapter 7 or § 1328 at the end of a Chapter 13 plan.
That holds even when the provider has already sued you. A judgment on a medical bill is still a judgment on an unsecured debt, and the discharge wipes out your personal liability on it. If the creditor recorded that judgment as a lien against property you own, a separate motion under § 522(f) can usually remove the lien to the extent it cuts into a Florida exemption, but the underlying debt is gone either way.
The narrow exception is fraud. If a patient obtained care on credit by giving the provider false information, the provider can ask the bankruptcy court to carve that bill out under § 523(a)(2). That is rare, it requires the creditor to file and win a separate lawsuit inside the bankruptcy case, and an honest inability to pay a bill you fully intended to pay is not fraud.
Chapter 7 or Chapter 13 for Medical Bills
Chapter 7 is the faster route and the one most people with heavy medical debt use. The case typically runs about three to four months from filing to discharge, and unsecured creditors are paid only from assets the Florida exemptions do not protect, which for most families means nothing. To qualify, your household income over the six months before filing has to pass the means test. For Florida cases filed on or after July 15, 2026, the U.S. Trustee’s median figures are $69,876 for a one-person household, $86,523 for two, $97,540 for three, and $114,761 for four, with $11,100 added for each person beyond four. Income above the median does not automatically disqualify you, but it triggers a longer expense-based calculation.
Chapter 13 fits when your income is too high for Chapter 7, when you are behind on a mortgage or car loan you want to keep, or when you have property the exemptions would not cover. Medical bills go into the plan as general unsecured claims, paid pro rata over three to five years from whatever is left after your living expenses and secured debts, often a small fraction of the balance. Whatever is unpaid when the plan ends is discharged.
The court filing fee is $338 for Chapter 7 and $313 for Chapter 13 as of 2026, and the court can allow payment in installments or, in Chapter 7, waive the fee entirely for very low-income filers. Before either chapter can be filed, § 109(h) requires a short credit-counseling course from an approved provider, which is usually completed online in about an hour.
Is There a Minimum Amount of Medical Debt?
No. The Bankruptcy Code sets no minimum, and there is no rule that medical bills have to be a particular share of what you owe. The practical question is whether a discharge is worth the trade-offs: a Chapter 7 case stays on your credit report for 10 years from the filing date and a Chapter 13 for 7, and the court fee and attorney’s fee are real money for someone already stretched.
The credit-reporting picture matters here, because many patients file mainly to stop a collection account from damaging their credit. Since 2022 and 2023 the three national credit bureaus have voluntarily stopped reporting medical collections that have been paid, stopped reporting medical collections under $500, and now wait a full year after a bill goes to collections before reporting it at all. A federal rule issued in January 2025 that would have removed every medical debt from credit reports was vacated by a federal court in Texas in July 2025, so it never took effect. The result is that a small or already-paid medical collection may not be on your report at all, while a large unpaid one over $500 still can be, and only a discharge or payment removes the underlying debt.
For someone with a few thousand dollars of hospital bills and no other serious debt, a negotiated payment plan or the hospital’s own financial-assistance program may be the better move. For someone whose medical debt sits on top of credit cards, a car loan in arrears, or a lawsuit, bankruptcy resolves all of it at once.
Florida’s 2024 Medical Debt Law, and What It Does Not Do
Florida changed its medical-debt rules in 2024 through House Bill 7089 (chapter 2024-183, Laws of Florida), effective July 1, 2024. Three parts of that law matter to anyone weighing bankruptcy. First, Fla. Stat. § 95.11(4) now gives a hospital or ambulatory surgical center licensed under chapter 395 only three years to sue on a medical bill, with the clock starting on the date the facility refers the debt to a third-party collector. Second, § 222.26 shields up to $10,000 of equity in one motor vehicle, and up to $10,000 in other personal property if you do not claim a homestead, from collection on that facility debt. Third, § 395.3011 requires the facility to give you an itemized bill, bill your insurer first, and send 30 days’ written notice by certified mail or another traceable method before it sells the debt, reports it to a credit bureau, or sues.
Those are useful protections, but they do not cancel a single dollar. The three-year limit only bars a lawsuit; the debt remains owed and collectors can still call and write. The $10,000 exemptions and the 30-day notice apply only to debt owed to a licensed facility, so the separate bills from the emergency-room physician group, the anesthesiologist, the radiologist, the ambulance company, or an independent urgent-care clinic get none of it. And nothing in the 2024 law stops a judgment creditor from garnishing wages on an older or non-facility bill. Bankruptcy is the only process that actually ends the obligation, and the automatic stay reaches every provider and collector, facility or not.
What Happens to the Hospital and the Collectors When You File
The moment the petition is filed, the automatic stay under 11 U.S.C. § 362(a) stops every collection effort on debts you owe as of that date: no calls, no letters, no new lawsuits, and any pending suit or wage garnishment on a medical bill is frozen. The hospital, each physician group, and any collection agency or debt buyer must be listed in your schedules with an address, so pull every statement and collection letter before filing; a creditor you leave off a no-asset Chapter 7 case is usually still discharged, but listing everyone is what makes the stay bite immediately.
Timing is the detail that gets missed. The discharge covers bills for care you received before the filing date. A hospital stay that ends the week after you file produces a new debt the case does not touch. When treatment is ongoing, the usual advice is to file once the major episode of care has been billed, so the whole balance falls on the right side of the line. If you later need emergency care, federal law still requires a hospital emergency department to screen and stabilize you regardless of a discharged bill, though a provider can decline to extend new credit for elective care.
Filing on Medical Debt in Miami-Dade
Miami-Dade residents file in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division, at the C. Clyde Atkins United States Courthouse, 301 North Miami Avenue. The § 341 meeting of creditors in this district is held by Zoom, and for a routine medical-debt case it usually takes a few minutes of questions from the trustee. Miami-Dade’s hospitals and surgical centers fall under the 2024 facility protections, but as in the rest of the state, the physician, imaging, and ambulance bills that arrive separately do not, which is one reason a single filing is often simpler than negotiating with six different billing departments.
Anyone searching for a bankruptcy attorney near me in Hialeah, Kendall, Doral, or Homestead should bring every bill, collection notice, and lawsuit paper to the first meeting, along with six months of pay stubs for the means test. Arturo R. Alfonso P.A. has served Miami-Dade families in English and Spanish for 30 years, and can tell you in one consultation whether Chapter 7, Chapter 13, or a negotiated plan with the hospital is the right answer for your bills.
Related Questions
Contact Us
Request a Free Consultation
Fill out the form below and Attorney Alfonso will get back to you within one business day.