Greatest Healthcare System in the World

Posted on April 25, 2012 at 7:17 am by Bob Cesca

Well, something needs to be done about this:

Hospital patients waiting in the emergency room or convalescing after surgery could find themselves confronted by an unexpected visitor: a debt collector at bedside.

One of the nation’s largest medical debt-collection companies is under fire in Minnesota for having placed its employees in emergency rooms and other departments at two hospitals and demanding that patients pay before receiving treatment, according to documents released Tuesday by the Minnesota attorney general. The documents say the company also used patient health records to wrangle for more money on overdue bills.

There are people in this country who can look into a TV camera and insist that America has the world’s greatest healthcare system. It’s likely they were never broke and in need of urgent medical attention.

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  • Ned F

    I thought this was a joke till I went to the NYT link. Being confronted by a collection company BEFORE treatment? Everything about this is so wrong, on so many levels, and the Minnesota AG thinks they’re in their right to do this? Unfuc*ingbelievable.

    “While hospital collections at Fairview increased, patient care suffered, the employees said. “Patients are harassed mercilessly,” a hospital employee told Ms. Swanson.
    Patients with outstanding balances were closely tracked by Accretive staff members, who listed them on “stop lists,”

    Stop lists? So those are the “death panels” we were warned about.

  • http://twitter.com/QuadCityPat Patrick

    Sadly Bob, this is happening everywhere and its not just collection agencies. The hospitals are doing it too. My wife had two emergency room visits last year when they suspected appendicitis. Our co-pay is 200 bucks for ER. They demanded payment before treatment. Oh and to add insult to injury, my wife works for the health system that the hospital is part of.

  • http://www.politicalruminations.com/ nicole

    Disgusting, and probably illegal.

  • villemar

    Fucks. Anyone who does this should be taken out back and have the living shit beaten out of them. Seriously, put them in the hospital and see how they like it.