A healthcare provider in Colorado is facing public pressure and accusations that it is hiding itself from public scrutiny because collection lawsuits filed to recover debts owed by its patients are filed by collection agencies working on the provider’s behalf, thus keeping the provider’s name out of the legal spotlight, according to published reports.
Why This Matters: This is the latest in a series of published reports calling out healthcare providers and hospital networks nationwide for being too aggressive with their collection efforts by filing collection lawsuits. In this case, UCHealth, the largest hospital system in Colorado, filed 15,710 lawsuits between 2019 and 2023, an average of eight per day, according to the report. Like most of the articles that criticize healthcare providers, this one fails to provide any suitable ideas for how UCHealth can recover those funds without having to file the lawsuits.
- Hospitals in Colorado, Texas, Virginia, Oklahoma, New York, Tennessee, Kansas, Maryland, New Jersey, and Wisconsin have all accused of being “too aggressive” by filing lawsuits to collect on unpaid debts. Many hospitals have stopped filing collection lawsuits and enforcing judgments as a result of the publicity.
- UCHealth is being called out because other providers in the state have either stopped filing collection lawsuits or file the lawsuits in their name. UCHealth said that the revenue derived from collection lawsuits represents 0.07% of its total patient revenue, or about $5 million per year.
‘An Unfortunate Necessity’: The hospital network, which manages 14 hospitals and 200 clinics and treats 3 million patients annually, said that the lawsuits are an “unfortunate necessity” in the healthcare business and hospitals need that money to continue operating.
- UCHealth said it is not trying to hide and that having the suits filed in the name of the vendor that is attempting to collect on the debt makes sense because they are in control over the suit. The report names two different collection operations that are filing lawsuits to collect on debts owed to the healthcare company.
