House Bill 1632 amends Washington law governing collection agencies and related health care and consumer reporting statutes. It amends RCW 19.16.100, reenacts and amends RCW 19.16.250, adds a new section to chapter 70.54 RCW, and makes changes to RCW 19.182.040, RCW 70.41.400, and RCW 70.54.005 as reflected in the extracted text. A central legal change is a prohibition on furnishing information about a “medical debt” to consumer credit reporting agencies: contracts creating medical debt entered into on or after the section’s effective date must include a specified contractual term forbidding such reporting, and if a person, health care provider, health care facility, or licensed collection agency furnishes the debt information in violation of the provision, the debt is declared void and unenforceable. The bill also characterizes such violations as unfair or deceptive acts under the Consumer Protection Act. The bill modifies collection-practice rules and procedures. It expands itemization requirements in communications, limits who and how licensees may communicate about claims, imposes presumptions about harassment for certain repeated contacts and limits phone/text contacts to cellular devices, and sets a cap on collection-service charges for commercial claims (not to exceed 35% of the commercial claim when authorized by agreement). For medical debt specifically, the first written notice must inform the debtor of the right to request identifying account information and an itemized statement, and collection must cease until a requested itemized statement is provided; the bill also imposes restrictions on collecting hospital debt during pending charity care applications. The bill prohibits certain legal actions by licensees in specified circumstances (for example, suits barred by the statute of limitations, and actions when vehicle transfer or theft/fraud indicators exist) and bars some postjudgment practices described in the text. The bill also amends consumer reporting time limits (listing the time horizons for bankruptcies, judgments, paid tax liens, accounts placed for collection, and other adverse items, with specified high-value exceptions) and transfers certain duties from the secretary of social and health services to the secretary of health under RCW 70.54.005. Important details are missing from the provided extracts: the effective date of the new 70.54 section is not included, portions of RCW 19.16.250 are incomplete in these excerpts, some amended wording appears struck or unclear, and full texts of the amendments to RCW 19.182.040, RCW 70.41.400, and other referenced subsections are not fully shown here.

If enacted, health care providers, hospitals, physician groups, debt buyers, and collection agencies would generally lose the ability to report medical debts to credit bureaus for debts created under the new rules and would have to include a specific contract term forbidding reporting in any medical debt contract entered after the law takes effect; if they nonetheless report such debt the debt becomes void and collection efforts can trigger consumer protection actions and licensing consequences for hospitals and other providers. Collection agencies would face stricter notice and documentation requirements for medical debt (including providing an itemized medical statement on request and pausing collection until it is provided), tighter limits on how and how often they may contact debtors (especially by phone or at work), and new obligations to update or notify credit bureaus about disputes; these changes likely increase compliance costs, administrative work, and legal risk for providers and collectors while giving consumers stronger protections and potential relief if violations occur. Important details are missing or unclear from the available text — notably the bill’s effective date, the exact patient notice language hospitals must use, how preexisting debts are treated, and certain edited/struck provisions about timing for reporting to credit agencies — so it is uncertain when the changes would begin to affect parties or how some reporting rules would operate in practice.