Debt Collectors Invade Hospitals By Posing As Employees and Lying to Patients
Alex Thomas
A startling report by End the Lie founder Madison Ruppert as well as a recent New York Times article documents the revelations that a debt collection agency is working directly inside hospitals to harass and sometimes lie to patients.
In certain instances debt collection employees have literally pretended to be hospital employees while demanding payment on past medical bills before a patient can receive any new care. These disgusting practices have even taken place in the maternity ward!
“When you go into a hospital and someone comes up to you and you think they are a hospital employee and they demand you pay some bill before you get treatment, a lot of people dont know whats going on and will think they have to pay it and in some cases if they can’t pay it they may walk out without treatment.
They were told to stall patients in the ER until they paid a previous bill. They were told first to ask for a credit card payment and if that didnt work they would say that if they had a checkbook in their car they would be happy to wait for them.”
In Minnesota, where Accretive Health works throughout numerous hospitals, the attorney general has stated that Accretive employees may have broke the law by not readily identifying themselves as debt collectors rather than an actual hospital employees.
California Representative Pete Stark has demanded that two federal agencies look into the shady practices at Accretive in what seems to be an obvious case of corporate greed.
An article published in the Huffinton Post quotes Rep. Stark:
“The debt collection tactics apparently being used by Accretive Health to get money from patients waiting to be seen by an ER doctor or recuperating in a hospital bed are abominable,” Stark said in a news release. “This is corporate greed at its worst,” he said.
“The article outlines abusive debt collection tactics undertaken by a hospital contractor; tactics that may be in violation of several federal laws,” Stark wrote in a letter today to Marilyn Tavenner, the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and to Daniel Levinson, the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Service.
Hospitals that hire Accretive Health allegedly allow debt collectors to work within the hospital in roles that include registering new patients, scheduling appointments and handling billing, the Times reported. Patients have been reportedly asked to pay upfront for emergency care, even though federal law requires hospitals to treat emergency room patients regardless of their ability to pay, according to the newspaper.
These disgusting practices, if completely true, are clearly illegal and should be immediately stopped.
Allowing debt collectors to lie to patients could literally cause people to leave the hospital without treatment which in turn could cause serious harm, including death.