UCHealth … has $5 BILLION in its hedge fund, and its CEO (I think) made $8m. It hasn’t filed a 990 for years as far as I can tell. Which is probably illegal.
UC has been getting collection agencies to sue patients who owe them trivial amounts of money, and hiding the fact that UC is the actor behind the suit…. The tales here are awful. Little old ladies being forced to sell their engagement rings, and uninsured immigrants being taken to the ER against their will and given a total runaround on costs until they end up in court.
What’s the end story here? UC Health gets a measly $5m (or a share of it) a year from all these lawsuits which is less than the CEO makes….
Fortunately, the majority of American hospitals don’t sue any patients. A detailed study in North Carolina (I believe) found that 90% of lawsuits came from only five large hospitals
in the state.
However, that is still a lot of suffering. How can we reduce the pain for the vulnerable patients?
The Affordable Care Act mandated hospitals to give discounted care to persons with no insurance and lower incomes. This has not really been enforced.
Would it make a difference? My observation is that some patients won’t pay even a discounted price. They are just really broke, or really angry at having to pay anything at all.
In the case of patient lawsuits, I wonder if the patient was offered the chance to make monthly repayments to the hospital….and how much those monthly repayments were.
Were the monthly payments even realistic? I remember reading about one case where the total charge was $60,000. The patient offered to pay $50 a month, and that was realistic considering their modest wages. But of course it would never pay off the total bill.