A follow-up report looking at the financial situations of individuals who were sued by a non-profit hospital in Memphis because of unpaid medical debts, only to have those suits voluntarily dismissed and the debts erased after a series of news articles spotlighted what it called “relentless efforts” to collect by the facility, reveals the individuals are in a better place without mentioning whether the hospital is.
There is no doubt that having $33,000 in debts wiped out is going to improve the financial situation of someone who was working as a grocery store clerk who was making $9.05 an hour. But what about the financial situation of the hospital, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, which erased nearly $12 million in debts that were owed by 5,300 defendants. The hospital, which filed more than 8,000 collection lawsuits in the five years leading up to when the article was published last year, has only filed three lawsuits in the 14 months since it hit the spotlight.
The hospital declined to be interviewed for the follow-up story, as it did when the initial article as published last year. It is “unclear” how the hospital’s financial situation has been affected as a result of the changes to its collection practices, according to the report.
After the initial article was published, the hospital announced a number of changes to its collection policies, including no longer pursuing legal options to collect and raising the threshold for individuals to be eligible to obtain financial assistance.
Following the report about the number of lawsuits filed by Methodist Le Bonheur, other hospitals and healthcare providers were also subjected to the spotlight. Hospitals in Virginia, Oklahoma, New York, Tennessee, and Maryland were each accused of being too aggressive with their collection efforts. As well, the Washington Post reported that the University of Virginia Health System has filed more than 36,000 lawsuits in the past six years against individuals with unpaid debts.
