‘Heartbreaking Stories’: Biden Administration Urged To Tackle Medical Debt

Modern Healthcare: Senators Urge Biden Admistration To Protect Patients From Harsh Medical Debt Collections
Senate Democrats are calling on federal authorities to take action on aggressive medical debt collection, citing reports about hospitals suing patients over unpaid bills. In a letter to the the Consumer Financial Proection Bureau (CFPB), Democratic Sens. Chris Murphy (Conn.) and Chris Van Hollen (Md.) recommended a series of actions to protect consumers' credit scores, provide patients with more information about financial assistance and coverage options, and give them more time to dispute or resolve debts before they are sent to collections. (Hellman, 6/25)

In other news about medical debt —

The Wall Street Journal: Medical-Debt Charity To Buy, Wipe Out $278 Million Of Patients’ Hospital Bills
A national charity will for the first time buy medical debt, totaling $278 million, directly from hospitals, a push to speed financial relief to patients, many of whom shouldn’t have been billed at all under the hospitals’ financial-aid policies. RIP Medical Debt, which uses donations to wipe out unpaid medical bills, has reached a deal with nonprofit Ballad Health, a dominant hospital system in Tennessee and Virginia, to buy debt owed by 82,000 low-income patients. Many likely qualified for free care under Ballad’s policy but didn’t get it, executives at Ballad involved in the agreement said. The patients lacked applications, they said. (Evans and Mathews, 6/15)

Becker's Hospital Review: Medical Debt Grew For Patients By 6.5% In Spring
Credit monitoring site Credit Karma said its members' medical debt grew by 6.5 percent from May 2020 to March 2021, Newsweek reported June 14.Credit Karma said medical debt grew by $2.8 billion among its members, and the number of people facing past-due medical bills rose by 9 percent. (6/14)

Fast Company: How Hospitals Inflate Bills And Shake Down Patients For Cash
A third of working Americans have medical debt. And about half of that group has defaulted on medical loans. Even for the insured, deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses are going up—while hospitals are inflating bills in a price war with insurance companies. And when people can’t pay, many hospitals sue or send bills to debt collectors. It’s the terrible reality of America’s healthcare, and a new series of data visualizations by Axios, spotted by FlowingData, takes you right inside of it. Built from an analysis of the top 100 hospitals in the United States by Johns Hopkins University, Axios’s charts let you easily sort through the data by tapping on a few tabs to spot some of the worst predatory billing behaviors. “We wanted to make this data feel personal and understandable,” Michelle McGhee, a visual journalist at Axios, wrote in an email to Fast Company. (Wilson, 6/28)

Quartz: Buying All Of The US’S Medical Debt Would Cost Less Than $3 A Person 
Medical debt in the US is higher than ever before. Although Americans generally didn’t have to pay for Covid-19 testing and treatment, other medical expenses didn’t stop during the pandemic, and the high rates of unemployment meant many lost employer-sponsored health insurance, too. According to the most recent estimate, from 2018, there is $81 billion of outstanding medical debt in the US, based on sample credit data from the Consumer Financial Bureau Protection. This value is likely higher after the pandemic, although it’s hard to give an accurate estimate. (Merelli, 6/24)

Becker's Hospital Review: Northwell Creates New Role: Medical Debt Ombudsman
Northwell Health is creating an independent medical debt ombudsman, the New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based health system said June 15.Northwell said it is the only hospital or health system in the U.S. to have such a role. The medical debt ombudsman will act as an independent reviewer to help patients pay their medical debt and avoid legal action by educating them about the health system's financial assistance options. (Adams, 6/16)

And more about the high cost of health care —

Modern Healthcare: High Costs, High Deductibles Inspire Consumers To Pay Cash For Drugs
If innovation is the mother of necessity, the market for disrupting the pharmacy industry could be limitless. Attention to the cost of prescription drugs intensified this month when the Food and Drug Administration approved the Alzheimer's disease drug Aduhelm, which manufacturer Biogen has priced at $56,000. But for policymakers, payers and patients, high drug prices are nothing new. Nearly 90% of consumers believe the federal government should negotiate directly with the drugmakers to drive down prices, according to a June poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Respondents across the political spectrum agreed that lowering prescription costs should be a key priority for President Joe Biden's administration. (Tepper, 6/25)

Modern Healthcare: Molina To Pay ED Staffing Firms $19 Million Over Underpaid Claims
A Texas state court jury on Thursday awarded two emergency department staffing companies more than $19 million in damages from Molina Healthcare of Texas due to underpaid claims. ACS Primary Care Physicians Southwest PA and Emergency Services of Texas will receive $1.5 million in actual damages and $17.5 million in punitive damages. The Houston jury found Molina Healthcare "engaged in unfair or deceptive practices" in paying emergency department claims. The staffing companies' attorney, John Zavitsanos, said this was the first lawsuit that evaluated how ACA plans would have to reimburse for ED claims. ACS and Emergency Services first sued Molina in 2017. (Devereaux, 6/25)

KHN: A Hospital Charged $722.50 To Push Medicine Through An IV. Twice. 
Claire Lang-Ree was in a lab coat taking a college chemistry class remotely in the kitchen of her Colorado Springs, Colorado, home when a profound pain twisted into her lower abdomen. She called her mom, Jen Lang-Ree, a nurse practitioner who worried it was appendicitis and found a nearby hospital in the family’s health insurance network. After a long wait in the emergency room of Penrose Hospital, Claire received morphine and an anti-nausea medication delivered through an IV. She also underwent a CT scan of the abdomen and a series of tests. (Bichell, 6/28)

KHN: Doctors’ Lobby Scores ‘Major Victory’ On Bill To Hold Physicians Accountable
The board that licenses and disciplines doctors in California is failing to hold bad actors accountable, endangering patients in the process. That’s the verdict of state lawmakers and patient advocates who have been working for years to reform the Medical Board of California. But an attempt this year to give the board more money and power to investigate complaints of fraud, gross negligence, sexual misconduct and other misbehavior is under attack from one of the most politically potent forces in California’s Capitol: doctors themselves. And so far, it seems, the doctors are winning. (Young, 6/28)