Amid massive hospital sell-off, corporate giant continues suing patients

It is not well-known that some large insurance companies have a specific tactic that they employ against out-of-network medical groups even for pre-approved or emergency work (Some practices that are out-of-network will charge exponential multiples for services which is another grievious issue).

The large insurer will send checks for goods & services directly to the patient, rather than to the practice(s) that performed the service, even if this is a fairly reasonable cost.

Patients see a check for $8,000 and $25,000 that is supposed to go to the trauma surgeon's practice that initially stabilized the patient, followed by the Plastic Surgeon's practice that spent 16 hours, 2 titanium plates, and a large number of titanium screws, and biologic implants reconstructing the patient's face. And, similar for the small consults $300 consults to Opthamology and Neurology that are common to severe head trauma involving optic nerves, relatively minor brain injures and significant facial trauma.

Instead of providing it to the practice to pay for the plates/screws, and delivered services, the patient spends the money. Then the patient gets sued.

This is not uncommon unfortunately - even for medical practices that TRY to be in-network with every single insurer, AND medicare/medicaid.

> When her summons arrived, panic set in for Cantwell.

"My mind went immediately to the stimulus payments," she says. "At least I have a way to take care of this now."

FFS. Zero chance this was a coïncidence.

The article makes no mention of the legal justification backing up any of these debts. They aren't due to straightforward contracts like nearly every other bill, as that would require up-front rates. And so they must be due to some state law that empowers hospitals to create arbitrary post-facto charges for whatever amounts they feel like. Part of the focus of healthcare reform needs to be on these state laws that enable the arbitrary billing racket in the first place - if they were eliminated, much of the opaqueness of the healthcare industry would be forced to change.

> But lawsuits are a rich man's game. She couldn't justify trying to find an attorney or fighting a big, publicly traded company that would pursue her for $2,700.

This makes no sense and calls into question whether the article is being honest in its description of the debt in question. No superior court would waste its time over $2,700 - that's small claims territory, eg. no lawyers or fees for defendants.

In general if you owe a debt to a company that gets acquired the debt doesn't just disappear. A bunch of fluff about the pandemic doesn't change that either. So my take is that the lede is disingenuous and the piece smells like agenda-pushing.