North Carolina hospitals — led by the state’s largest public medical system — have sued 1000’s of their sufferers since 2017, in accordance with a new analysis that sheds extra gentle on the aggressive techniques U.S. hospitals routinely use to gather from individuals who fall behind on their payments.
The report, produced by the state treasurer and Duke College Faculty of Legislation researchers, and associated patient interviews supply harrowing accounts of individuals pursued for tens of 1000’s of {dollars} and infrequently stunned by liens that hospitals positioned on household houses.
In some circumstances, spouses have been focused after their companions died. In others, sufferers interviewed by researchers mentioned they’d been stunned to find out about property liens solely after they tried to promote their houses or after a dad or mum who owned the house died.
“I do know my home won’t ever be mine. It’ll be the hospital’s,” mentioned Donna Lindabury, 70, whose house was focused by Charlotte-based Atrium Well being, which received a $192,000 judgment in opposition to her and her 79-year-old husband over his 2009 coronary heart surgical procedure. Curiosity on the debt represented greater than half of the couple’s steadiness.
Lindabury mentioned the hospital initially informed them they may get help with the payments, however then denied their purposes for help. “Individuals, the place their God is cash, they only don’t care,” she informed researchers.
The North Carolina findings reinforce an investigation by KFF Health News and NPR, which discovered that the majority U.S. hospitals keep insurance policies to aggressively pursue sufferers for unpaid payments, utilizing techniques resembling lawsuits, promoting affected person accounts to debt patrons, and reporting sufferers to credit standing companies.
Nationwide, about 100 million people — 41% of adults — have some type of well being care debt, in accordance with a KFF ballot. Medical debt is most widespread within the South, the place power illness is extra prevalent and lots of states haven’t expanded their Medicaid security web by the Inexpensive Care Act. (North Carolina expanded Medicaid solely this yr.)
The North Carolina state treasurer launched the brand new report as a rising variety of states, together with North Carolina, are working to increase protections for sufferers, typically within the face of hospital business lobbying.
“It’s simply one other instance of hospitals placing earnings forward of sufferers. It’s like an onion. The extra you peel it again, the extra you cry,” mentioned Treasurer Dale Folwell, a Republican who for years has challenged hospital pricing and debt assortment practices. “They need to cease breaking individuals’s kneecaps to gather these money owed.”
Atrium and different massive tax-exempt well being methods are below scrutiny amid mounting evidence that many aren’t providing adequate financial assistance to low-income sufferers and are leaving individuals who ought to qualify for help with huge payments.
The brand new report, primarily based on an evaluation of 5½ years of court docket information from 2017 to 2022, recognized 5,922 debt assortment lawsuits that focused greater than 7,500 sufferers and their relations.
The fits generated greater than $57 million in judgments for the hospitals, researchers discovered, together with hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in curiosity costs and different charges assessed in opposition to sufferers and their households.
North Carolina regulation permits hospitals to cost 8% annual curiosity on excellent money owed, which added tens of 1000’s of {dollars} to some households’ money owed over time, the researchers discovered. General, curiosity accounted for nearly a 3rd of the overall judgments recorded within the debt circumstances.
The report additionally famous that the lawsuits undermine the monetary safety of generations of North Carolinians. Hospitals can pursue relations for a affected person’s medical debt, and property liens sap the worth of a house, even after a affected person dies. “These lawsuits can thus goal a household’s major supply of fairness for surviving spouses and kids,” the authors wrote. “Medical debt can gasoline an intergenerational cycle of poverty.”
Researchers discovered that probably the most aggressive debt collector was Atrium, a medical system with roots as a public hospital in Charlotte that, following a merger final yr with Midwest-based Advocate Aurora, is now a multistate colossus with $27 billion in annual income. Atrium filed virtually 2,500 lawsuits in opposition to sufferers from Jan. 1, 2017, to June 30, 2022.
Atrium additionally pushes sufferers who can’t afford medical payments into loans from non-public equity-backed lender AccessOne that may include rates of interest as excessive as 13%, a KFF Health News investigation discovered final yr.
Atrium declined to handle questions in regards to the lawsuits on the report or to make chief govt Eugene Woods obtainable to debate its debt assortment practices.
The second-most litigious system is way smaller. CaroMont Well being in Gastonia, North Carolina, a small metropolis about 20 miles west of Charlotte, operates only one inpatient hospital. Nevertheless it filed virtually 1,800 lawsuits in opposition to sufferers from 2017 to mid-2022, in accordance with the report.
CaroMont declined to make chief govt Chris Peek obtainable for an interview, however a spokesperson mentioned the system solely not often sues. “We take critically our obligation to companion with sufferers in all points of medical care and repair, and we at all times attempt to resolve these issues with compassion,” Meghan Berney mentioned in a press release.
In distinction to Atrium and CaroMont, some North Carolina hospitals filed just one or two lawsuits in opposition to their sufferers from 2017 to 2022, the researchers, led by Duke regulation professor Barak Richman, discovered.
Related analyses of court docket information in Wisconsin, New York, Maryland, and different states in recent times have uncovered in depth use of the court docket system by hospitals. And KFF Health News found last year that greater than two-thirds of U.S. hospitals sue sufferers or take different authorized motion in opposition to them, resembling garnishing wages or putting liens on property. That evaluation was primarily based on an investigation of a pattern of greater than 500 hospitals nationwide.
The eye on these debt assortment actions has helped catalyze state efforts to increase protections for sufferers. A number of states, together with Arizona, Colorado, Maryland, and New York, have enacted medical debt legal guidelines in recent times.
In North Carolina, a bipartisan group of state lawmakers have been pushing laws that may limit some assortment actions by hospitals, together with capping rates of interest that medical suppliers might cost on affected person debt and limiting collections in opposition to relations. Earlier this yr, the state Senate unanimously handed the invoice, referred to as the Medical Debt De-Weaponization Act.
However the invoice has stalled within the Home amid opposition from the state’s highly effective hospital business, whose political motion committee has made greater than $260,000 in marketing campaign contributions since 2022, according to WBTV, the CBS affiliate in Charlotte. Among the many greatest beneficiaries of hospital business largesse is the speaker of the North Carolina Home, Republican Tim Moore, the station reported. Moore’s workplace didn’t reply to inquiries from KFF Well being Information.
KFF Health News is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is likely one of the core working applications at KFF — the impartial supply for well being coverage analysis, polling, and journalism.
