Healthcare organizations come under fire for suing patients for debt collection

Surprise medical bills and high out-of-pocket expenses are receiving more political attention, and some hospitals and physician associations are coming under fire for their aggressive patient collection tactics. According to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch investigation last week, the Schumacher Clinical Partners medical group treated emergency room patients at hospitals owned by the not-for-profit SSM Health, a Catholic system, resulting in more than 1,000 debt collection lawsuits in the St. Louis region. Capio Partners, a significant national medical debt collector who purchased Schumacher’s unpaid ED bills, brought the lawsuits.