Medical Debt Collector to Pay a $2.5 Million Settlement - NYTimes.com

Medical Debt Collector to Pay a $2.5 Million Settlement - NYTimes.com:

'via Blog this'


"Accretive Health




 one of the nation’s largest collectors of medical debt, has agreed to pay $2.5 million to the Minnesota state attorney general’s office to settle accusations that it violated a federal law requiring hospitals to provide emergency care, even if patients cannot afford to pay.

Hospitals have long hired outside collection agencies to pursue patients after they have received care. But mounting financial pressures have resulted in hospitals letting collection firms in the front door, turning over the management of their staffing, like patient registration and scheduling, along with their collection activities, according to Ms. Swanson.

Concerns are escalating that such cozy relationships will threaten patient privacy and care, according to consumer advocates.

Still, hospitals say that they are in a tough position. The more than 5,000 community hospitals in the United States provided $39.3 billion in uncompensated care — made up of unpaid patient debts or charity care — in 2010, up 16 percent from 2007, the American Hospital Association, a trade group, said.

Accretive Health e-mails and internal training manuals, which came to light through the investigation, revealed that some Accretive employees were told to hound patients to pay outstanding bills and sometimes discouraged them from receiving care.

The company fostered a pressurized collection environment, according to interviews with current and former employees. Those employees who fell behind collection quotas were threatened with termination.

“We’ve started firing people that aren’t getting with the program,” a member of Accretive’s staff wrote in an e-mail to his bosses in September 2010.

In some instances, the employees had access to a trove of confidential patient records, which they might have used while persuading patients to pay their overdue bills, a potential violation of federal privacy laws. Under the terms of the settlement, Accretive Health will be required to turn over all the data of Minnesota patients that it has collected."