Atrium Health, North Carolina's top collector of medical debt in recent years, has stopped suing patients for unpaid medical bills.

For the past five and a half years North Carolina hospitals brought 5,922 lawsuits against about 7,500 patients and their families, according to published reports. And the courts, in 3,449 cases, favored the hospitals, which amounted to a total of $57.3 million in debt collection or about $16,623 per judgment spanning from January 2017 to June 2022.

Researchers from Duke University School of Law and North Carolina's Office of State Treasurer Fund wrote in a report that: "Our findings raise first-order questions about the efficacy of our legal system in resolving financial debts with notice and fairness, and they require direct discussions about the roles we expect hospitals, especially non-profit hospitals, to play in our economy, health policy and society."