Revenue Cycle

Prominent hospitals targeted in charity care class-action suits

Patient Financial Services Weekly Advisor, June 25, 2004

Several more hospitals and healthcare systems have been named in federal class-action lawsuits that allege the hospitals distorted the extent of their charity care while using questionable tactics to receive payment from uninsured patients, according to a June 23 Associated Press report.

Mississippi attorney Richard Scruggs announced the lawsuits against 13 hospitals last week; this week, he said more hospitals and healthcare systems in Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Missouri, and Texas have been targeted. They include

  • Banner Health in Arizona
  • Centura Health Corporation, Catholic Health Initiatives, Catholic Health Initiatives Colorado, and Portercare Adventist Health System in Colorado
  • Resurrection Medical Center and Resurrection Health Care in Illinois
  • BJC Health System/BJC Healthcare in Missouri
  • Baylor Health Care System/Baylor University Medical Center in Texas

    Scruggs, who represents plaintiffs-uninsured patients of the hospitals-in several cases, is seeking monetary damages for the hospitals' alleged failure to comply with agreements between the medical facilities and the federal, state, and county governments, the report said.

    The lawsuits allege that in addition to amassing millions from savings on unpaid taxes, the hospitals benefit from income from their for-profit operations, according to a statement on the Not-For-Profit Hospital Class Action Litigation Web site.

    To read more from the Not-For-Profit Hospital Class Action Litigation site, click here.

    In related news, the OIG was part of a panel which testified June 24 before the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce on hospital billing and collection practices for the uninsured.

    To read testimony given by Lewis Morris, chief counsel to the Inspector General, click here.

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