Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Wisconsin Hospitals Revved Up Debt Collection, Especially Against Blacks
Bloomberg: One State’s History Of Hospital Debt Lawsuits Reveals Racial Gap
Hospitals sued patients to collect medical bills at an escalating pace over the past two decades in Wisconsin, according to a new analysis, and the suits disproportionately affected Black people. The rate of medical debt collection lawsuits in the state increased by more than a third from 2001 to 2018, researchers from Yale University and Stanford University reported in the journal Health Affairs. Lawsuits that led to wage garnishments also rose. The authors called it the first study of long-term trends in such suits by hospitals. (Tozzi, 12/6)
Modern Healthcare: Wisconsin Hospitals Sued More Patients, Garnished More Wages In Recent Years
Wisconsin hospitals filed 37% more medical debt lawsuits in 2018 than in 2001, and the targets were disproportionately Black patients and those living in rural areas, a new Health Affairs study found. Wisconsin hospitals sued patients at a rate of 1.53 per 1,000 residents in 2018, a year they filed about 8,900 lawsuits, according to the findings released Monday. That's up from 1.12 per 1,000 residents in 2001, when they filed just under 5,900 lawsuits. The share of cases that resulted in wage garnishment jumped 27% during that time. Just over half of cases filed in 2018 culminated in wage garnishment. (Bannow, 12/6)
In other health industry news —
Cal Matters: From Maggots To Sex Abuse, Nursing Homes Sue California To Overturn Citations, Fines
At a nursing home in Los Angeles last year, a nurse’s aide was giving a resident a bed bath when she noticed something moving around his feeding tube. When she looked closer, she saw maggots crawling from underneath the tube’s dressing. Another nurse noted that the patient’s tube — inserted into his stomach to provide nutrition — “had not been cleaned” and “flies are always in the building.” There was no record of the feeding tube being cleaned for 23 days, a state inspector reported. Already paralyzed from a stroke and suffering from COVID-19 pneumonia, the 65-year-old man contracted a serious infection and landed in the hospital. (Feder Ostrov, 12/6)
Dallas Morning News: Dallas Clinic Genecis Cuts Care To Transgender Kids, Halts Hormone Treatments For New Patients
A pioneering care program in Dallas for transgender youth is cutting off hormone and other medical treatments for new patients, a move that goes against the standards of care for eligible adolescents set out by transgender health experts. Genecis — which stands for Gender Education and Care, Interdisciplinary Support — was a highly-acclaimed 7-year-old program created by Children’s Health and UT Southwestern Medical Center to provide transgender and gender-diverse youth with health care, including mental health counseling and hormone therapy. (Wolf and McGaughy, 12/6)
