Hospital Charity Care in the Spotlight: Aggressive Bill Collection; Criticisms of Policies

There is continuing fallout for hospitals in the wake of N.Y. Times articles about a hospital chain’s aggressive billing practices and another hospital’s reliance on its poor patients to access a lucrative federal program. The hospital chain covered in the first article – Providence – has in response announced it will refund payments made by more than 700 low-income patients, according to a follow-up article by the N.Y. Times.  The Post Bulletin published an article titled “Medical bills can be crippling. Mayo Clinic’s charity care? Arguably lacking.” And Axios reported on a study that found pandemic-drive revamping of charity care policies often have vague criteria and sometimes increased restrictions on access.

Lloyd Mayer