When hospitals sue patients (part 1)

An Arm and a Leg

Society & Culture, Medicine, Health, Health & Fitness, Documentary

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 7 December 2023

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Hey, it’s the BEST time to support this show with a donation. Thanks to NewsMatch, any gift you make, up to $1,000, will be doubled. It’s a great deal, and it will set us up to kick maximum butt in 2024. Here’s the link, go for it!

We’ve been working on this investigation all year, with our partners at Scripps News and the Baltimore Banner.

For years, we’ve been hearing about hospitals suing patients over unpaid medical bills – sometimes even in bulk, by the hundreds or thousands at a time.

Many of the patients getting sued are already facing financial hardship, or like one couple we interviewed, already in bankruptcy.

Judgments against patients in these suits can be life changing. But according to experts, these lawsuits don’t recoup a ton of lost revenue for hospitals. So why do they happen? And what if hospitals stopped doing it completely?

In this episode, we talk to a former sales rep for a medical-debt collections agency — who now steers hospitals away from efforts to collect money, via lawsuits or other means, from folks who just don’t have it.

He tells hospitals: This is better for your bottom line.

Stay tuned for part two, coming in two weeks.

… and to preview some of what’s in it — plus a whole lot more excellent reporting — check out the Baltimore Banner’s story: Maryland hospitals stopped suing patients with unpaid bills. Will they start again?

This series is produced in partnership with the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York.

… and supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

OOH: And don’t forget. It’s prime time to make a donation and support this show.

Here’s a transcript of this episode.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there real quick, if you appreciate an arm and a leg, this is the best time to help us make the show by making a donation.
0:07.3	That's because right now a program called Newsmatch matches every dollar you give.
0:12.1	The place to go is arm in a leg show
0:14.0	dot com slash support. Thanks. Okay here's a show.
0:18.3	Hey there. Starting this episode with a field trip.
0:24.4	I hear dogs.
0:28.2	I'm in the right place.
0:31.6	Nick McLaughlin lives outside Kalamazoo Michigan. The email with
0:34.8	his address said long gravel driveway blue house. He said he'd be outside
0:39.2	with his dogs enjoying a cup of coffee. This is a big lot with a pond on one side, a lake on the other
0:45.8	and huge trees all around. So yeah, when I said sitting out enjoying a cup of coffee this. This is a pretty good spot to do it.
0:54.4	Pretty cool bird action. We had some neat red-headed woodpeckers going this morning.
0:59.6	Nick has lived in this area since he was in high school. His parents still live nearby. So do his in-laws.
1:05.6	Nick's married to his high school sweetheart. They got married while they were still in college. And that's also
1:10.4	when Nick started working in medical collections.
1:13.5	I just saw a part-time job listing in the college job
1:17.7	website for patient financial counselor.
1:20.3	Didn't know what that meant.
1:21.8	Next thing I knew I had a headset on and was talking to
1:26.6	patients about two and three year old hospital bills that they had.
1:29.8	Oh my gosh. And my parents about disowned me.
1:35.0	My mom's a nurse and my dad's a PhD environmental scientist and so
	...

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