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Aggressive Debt Collectors Take to the Web
By Staff Reporters
Thousands of patients face crippling debt to hospitals and healthcare systems across the country; even though they may have qualified for free care.
Yale-New Haven Health System
Now, the Yale-New Haven Health System, Yale-New Haven Hospital and Bridgeport Hospitals are pursuing aggressive debt-collection practices—including liens, wage garnishments and foreclosures—even though they have millions of dollars set aside for free care for patients who can’t pay. Others have colossal endowments as well, and often pay their CEOs handsomely.
Assessment
But, according to their website, the Hospital Debt Justice Project is only fighting for fair treatment and accountability from our community hospitals.
Link: http://www.hospitaldebtjustice.org
Industry Indignation Index: 85
Conclusion
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Filed under: Health Insurance, Health Law & Policy, Healthcare Finance, Industry Indignation Index, Information Technology | Tagged: Bridgeport Hospital, charity care, debt collectors, Health Insurance, healthcare systems, hospital debt, hospital debt collectors, Hospital Debt Justice Project, hospitals, medical debt collectors, UCR, Yale-New Haven, Yale-New Haven Health System |
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Hospital Debt Levels
According to Fitch Ratings, bad debt fell among for-profit hospitals during the first quarter of 2008. Nonetheless, for-profits still had a higher percentage of unpaid bills than non-profit peers and physicians.
For example, bad debt levels as a percentage of revenue fell from 18.4% in the fourth quarter of 2007 to 17.7% in the first quarter of 2008. While declining debt is always a good sign, this stands in contrast to physician practices, whose bad debt level is typically in the 5% to 10% range. It is also higher than the debt faced by non-profits that had bad debt levels of 5.5% in 2006.
Fitch reported bad debt fell among for-profit hospitals partly because of the lower number of uninsured patients being treated at such facilities, as well as more efforts by the hospitals to collect co-payments up front and improve internal and external collections efforts.
How are these results the same/or different in 2011?
Charles
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