Minn. Attorney General's office released a six volume report on Accretive Health's debt collection practices.
Minnesota- Fairview Ridges Hospital is owned by Fairview Health Services, a nonprofit Minnesota chain that, until recently, contracted with Chicago-based Accretive Health, a company that manages billing and debt-collection for hospitals. According to Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson (D), Accretive Health went too far in its efforts to maximize revenue for its clients and badgered emergency room patients for money upfront or demanded payment from patients like Folken at their bedsides.
Swanson published a a six-volume report about Accretive Health's practices last month that has drawn attention to hospital billing and debt collection from the news media, federal regulators and members of Congress. Accretive Health says no patients were refused medical care because of money nor led to believe they would be, and is furiously working to restore its reputation.
What happened to Folken is about more than just the insensitivity of a single hospital employee or the overreaching of a hospital or its contractor. Aggressive debt collection and confounding hospital bills are merely an indicator of systemic problems in the American health care system that are affecting both hospitals and patients.
The prices for health care services are rising even as health insurance plans cover a smaller share of the costs. The result hits patients with bigger bills, as hospitals look to them to fill ever widening budget gaps. The Fairview employee who took Folken's credit card brought up his $1,000 deductible when she asked for payment, he said.
Hospitals are "getting more aggressive because they now know that so much more of the bill is going to go uncovered," said Sara Rosenbaum, a professor at George Washington University's law school and a former health policy advisor to President Bill Clinton. "The value of our coverage is shrinking and it's leaving us exposed to very, very high out-of-pocket costs, which, of course, are insurmountable for all but the wealthiest people," she said.
Many hospitals, especially a growing number of nonprofit companies, are on unstable financial footing -- so they're clamoring to bring in every dollar they can. Nonprofit hospitals are particularly vulnerable and are seeing their access to capital weakened and their credit ratings downgraded because lenders are worried they won't be able to pay their own debts.
Minn. Atty. General's six volume report on Accretive Health:
Vol. #1: http://www.ag.state.mn.us/PDF/PressReleases/ComplianceReview/Vol.%201.pdf
Vol. #2: http://www.ag.state.mn.us/PDF/PressReleases/ComplianceReview/Vol.%202.pdf
Vol. #3: http://www.ag.state.mn.us/PDF/PressReleases/ComplianceReview/Vol.%203.pdf
Vol. #4: http://www.ag.state.mn.us/PDF/PressReleases/ComplianceReview/Vol.%204.pdf
Vol. #5: http://www.ag.state.mn.us/PDF/PressReleases/ComplianceReview/Vol.%205.pdf
Vol. #6: http://www.ag.state.mn.us/PDF/PressReleases/ComplianceReview/Vol.%206.pdf
Son hit with aging parent's $93K nursing home bill.
John Pittas’ mother entered a nursing home for rehabilitation following a car crash. After she left the nursing home, she moved out of the country. His mother’s $93,000 bill at the home was left unpaid. The mom had applied for Medicaid, which would normally pay the bill if she couldn’t.
The mom’s Medicaid application did not get approved in enough time to satisfy the nursing home, and it sued her son for the bill. The state of Pennsylvania, like 29 others in our country, has something called a “filial responsibility law”. Those laws require that spouses, children and even parents of needy adults support the indigent. These laws were rarely ever enforced. The nursing home decided to enforce it rather than have Medicaid do what it was designed to do.
The trial court found for the nursing home. Mr. Pittas appealed. He argued that the court should have considered Medicaid or going after his mother’s husband and her two other adult children. Astonishingly, the appeals court not only agreed that the nursing home didn’t have to wait until the Medicaid claim was resolved, it also found that the nursing home could choose any family member it wanted to when seeking payment for the bill.
There is an adage in the law: You can’t legislate morality. However that is exactly what the Pennsylvania courts in the Pittas case did. If a son or daughter has the money and wants to pay for mom or dad’s care, that’s an upright choice. But what if they choose not to pay? What if they have their own expenses, kids in college or a retirement they want to fund? Since when is it okay to unfairly discriminate against a financially successful family member? Mr. Pittas’s tax returns, bank statements, and other personal data are now presumably public record.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolynrosenblatt/2012/05/21/son-hit-with-aging-parents-93k-nursing-home-bill/