Four more N.C. hospital systems cancel old medical debt judgments
October 29, 2024
By Michelle Crouch
Co-published with
Five hospitals responsible for nearly all of North Carolina鈥檚 lawsuits filed against patients for medical debt have committed to erasing all of their existing judgments, The Charlotte Ledger/NC Health 瓜神app has learned.
Atrium Health, the state鈥檚 largest health care system, that it would clear old judgments and lift liens against thousands of patients. It had filing medical debt related lawsuits in early 2023.
This week, four other systems 鈥� Gastonia-based, Asheville-based , in southeastern North Carolina and Community Health Systems, which owns Lake Norman Regional Hospital in Mooresville 鈥� confirmed that they鈥檙e either in the process of taking a similar step or have already done so.
Together, the five systems accounted for 96 percent of the medical debt lawsuits in North Carolina between 2017 and mid-2022, according to a.
During that time period, according to the report, those hospitals filed a total of 5,922 medical debt lawsuits and won $58.7 million in judgments, with an average judgment of $16,623.
In North Carolina, medical debt judgments can last for 20 years and automatically place liens against patients鈥� homes, allowing hospitals to collect when the home is sold or the owner dies. They also accrue 8 percent interest per year as long as they remain unpaid.
The release of those judgments means patients can sell their homes without worrying about the outstanding debt.
As a , hospitals nationwide have come under fire for their aggressive collection practices. About one in five North Carolina residents has medical debt in collections, one of the highest rates in the country, according to an .
Nonprofits sent letter to hospital CEOsRebecca Cerese, health policy advocate for the NC Justice Center, said her organization was one of 26 nonprofits that sent to the presidents of CaroMont, CHS, Mission Health (now owned by HCA Healthcare) and Sampson Regional, asking them to follow suit after Atrium鈥檚 announcement.
They got no response to the letter, Cerese said, so she was happy to hear that the hospitals were forgiving the debt.
鈥淲e鈥檙e so excited that these hospital systems are realizing the detrimental impact that these liens have on people,鈥� she said. 鈥淧eople build generational wealth through their homes. They should not be losing that because they got sick or had an accident.鈥�
Most of the hospitals said they recently ended the practice of suing patients and are in the process of clearing judgments and removing liens.
CaroMont Health, which filed the second highest number of medical debt lawsuits behind Atrium, stopped pursuing liens in September 鈥渢o align with the letter and spirit of the state's medical debt relief program,鈥� spokeswoman Meghan Berney said.
The state鈥檚 requires hospitals to forgive medical debt dating back to 2014 for low- and middle-income patients and to beef up their charity care policies 鈥� in return for billions of dollars in federal money.
HCA Healthcare started releasing judgments associated with Mission Health when it acquired Mission in 2019, according to spokeswoman Nancy Lindell. The Nashville-based for-profit system does not file lawsuits related to medical debt, Lindell said.
Patients celebrateThe hospitals said affected patients do not need to take any action. Lifting the liens would take time to complete, they said, because it requires coordination with courts in multiple jurisdictions.
For Lionel and Brenda White, the relief came about two weeks ago when they received a letter from Atrium that the hospital system was canceling its $50,529 lien on their Charlotte home.
The debt, which came from Lionel鈥檚 three-day stay at Carolinas Medical Center in 2018, was more than either of them makes in a year.
Last year, after learning Atrium had stopped suing patients, the couple reached out to an Atrium attorney to see if their debt could be cleared, but at the time he told them they were out of luck, they shared with .
When they got the recent letter, they were overjoyed.
鈥淓verything was canceled,鈥� Brenda White said. 鈥淲e were like, 鈥楾hank God.鈥� We didn鈥檛 need that hanging over our heads. I don鈥檛 know who could pay that kind of money. So we feel a lot of relief.鈥�
This article is part of a partnership between The Charlotte Ledger and North Carolina Health 瓜神app to produce .
This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
