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Are doctors and hospitals ignoring patients’ medical debt?

For the health system to endure, physician groups and hospital systems might look more closely at the bills they send patients and the collection tactics they use or health insurers might reconsider the HDHPs they sell.

By Noam N. Levey | July 25, 2023 at 11:18 AM
Overdue Medical bills (Photo: Shutterstock)

For Emily Boller, it was a $5,000 hospital bill for a simple case of pink eye that took four years to pay off. For Mary Curley, it was the threatening collection letters from a lab that arrived more than 2½ years later, just as her husband lost his job and the family was fighting to save their home.

For Cory Day, it was a $1,000 fee he was charged at an emergency room outside Los Angeles, even though he only checked in and then left before being seen. “I feel like the hospital is a predator,” Day said. “This is a place that’s supposed to be looking after you.”

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