Another mainstream media has shined its spotlight on surprise medical bills, but this time naming a collection agency that had the audacity to try and collect on debts that were placed with it.
Nobody argues that surprise medical bills aren’t a problem. For those who aren’t aware, a surprise medical bill happens when an individual is treated at a hospital and either the hospital itself or the doctors who work there are not part of the individual’s insurance network, requiring the individual to pay for the treatment.
There have been a lot of stories about some outrageously high surprise medical bills that have hit individuals. A number of states have proposed legislation that would end the practice in some way, shape, or form. One of those states is Colorado, which is where today’s story takes place.
The article shares details a woman who had to be rushed to a hospital for an emergency appendectomy. While the hospital was in her insurance network, the surgeon was not, and sent her a bill for $4,727. The article then states, “She declined to pay the bill.” It doesn’t mention anything about communicating or working with the collection agency that the surgeon used to try and collect on the debt.
The collection agency filed suit against the woman and won, had a lien placed on her home and began to garnish her wages to recover the unpaid debt. The agency, according to the article, has placed liens on 170 homes because individuals have not paid their bills.
Everyone in the process — hospitals, collection agencies, and doctors — agrees that the system is broken. But faulting the collection agency because, like everyone else, it did its job, seems unfair. The article does include a statement from “the state association of collection agencies” that it supports legislation that has been introduced in the Colorado legislature that would limit how much an individual could be billed when treated out of his or her insurance network and would make it illegal for wages to be garnished when trying to repay a medical debt.
“These cases are challenging for those tasked with collecting the claims as well,” according to the statement from the state association, acknowledging, indirectly, that the agency is only doing its job.
Nobody argues that these aren’t heartbreaking stories. But collection agencies can’t pick and choose which accounts to collect on. Accounts don’t usually come with backstories. There is enough blame to go around that the headline for this story didn’t have to be:
Surprise medical bills lead to liens on homes and crippling debt
NBC News found collections firms putting liens on homes because of unpaid medical bills in New Hampshire, Colorado, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma and Vermont.
Once again the liberal media in this country opt for sensationalism over informative news presentation.
The medical providers should not have to bear the burden either. They provided services to the patient and deserve to be paid. It seems to me that the insurance company should be required to pay for emergency services, whether the provider is “in-network” or not. I would submit that this is what the law should be. But the insurance lobby is pretty wealthy so it will likely be the providers that get the shaft.