Using a recently released report out of North Carolina, The Wall Street Journal yesterday published an article detailing how state legislatures across the country have enacted laws or are working on doing so in an effort to “limit aggressive debt-collection practices.”
The Journal focuses its attention on many of the inherent problems in the healthcare industry today — gaps in financial assistance policies and requirements, the skyrocketing costs of healthcare, and how hospitals are falling short in their charity care obligations, especially to low-income patients.
For the accounts receivable management industry, though, having more states attempting to solve the problems through legislation is often a recipe for migraines and confusion. That more states are seeking to enact their own laws, including New York, and following in the footsteps of Nevada, New Mexico, Illinois, and other states, may not be the most welcome news.
The problem — as many in this industry already understand — is that nobody voluntarily incurs medical debt. Medical debts are usually the result of emergencies or other situations beyond the control of an individual. That dynamic creates a powerful incentive for consumer advocates and lawmakers to try and protect individuals, especially those on the lower rungs of the income ladder, from having to spend years repaying debts, if they can be repaid at all.
Hospitals “are not doing enough for the lower- and fixed-income people of our communities,” said Dale Folwell, North Carolina’s Treasurer, who issued a report last week spotlighting hospitals for not offering charity care to patients who qualified for it.
Until the federal government is able to step up and address these problems, state legislatures will step in and try to do it for them.
From the Journal
