Hospitals in Washington State have been found liable for failing to provide charity care assistance to patients.
The Yakima Herald has reported that Yakima Regional Medical and Cardiac Center and Toppenish Medical Center violated Washington State's Consumer Protection Act by not providing charity care options to indigent patients. The hospitals are defendants in a class-action suit brought by patients.
Superior Court Judge Susan L. Hahn had previously ruled that the hospitals breached contracts with the patients by making demands for payments without screening their ability to pay.
“It is likely some indigent patients were unable to pay these deposits and as a result denied access to qualified medical services,” Hahn said in her ruling, according to the Yakima Herald.
The ruling could mean that the hospitals and its corporate owner, Community Health Systems (CHS), could be liable for penalties of up to $25,000 per patient denied charity care coverage.
Such issues of being aggressive with potentially indigent patients is not confined to Washington State. Mosaic of Life Care in Missouri formed a for-profit corporation to sue its patients who owed money. The hospital operator recently agreed to stop such business practices. A hospital in Charlotte, North Carolina operated by the Carolinas Healthcare chain also sued thousands of patients over unpaid bills, often for nominal amounts.
In a statement issued to the newspaper, Yakima Regional and Toppenish said they now use "new charity care policies approved by the Washington State Department of Health, policies that we adopted following our affiliation with CHS in January 2014.” The lawsuit had been filed the previous year against the hospitals' prior owner, Health Management Associates.
- read the Yakima Herald article