DENVER — For years, Colorado’s largest and most prominent medical provider did something that seemed to go against its family friendly public relations push.
UCHealth sued patients. Thousands per year.
Then, right around the start of the 2020 pandemic, those lawsuits disappeared. Or so it seemed.
An investigation by 9NEWS and the Colorado Sun – done in partnership with the Colorado News Collaborative and KFF Health News – discovered UCHealth’s aggressive bill collection efforts have quietly continued under the banner of what amounts to a debt-seeking middleman.
Instead of using its name as the plaintiff in debt collection lawsuits, our investigation discovered UCHealth now almost exclusively sues, on average, roughly 3,000 patients a year under the name of one of the two debt collectors it utilizes.
While it might seem trivial, the move has allowed the medical provider to largely escape the legislative and public scrutiny that often accompanies aggressive bill collection tactics. It has also left many of its own cash-strapped patients confused as to who is suing them.
Critics say it’s illegal and have challenged it in court.
“It’s a fundamental black-letter aspect of the law," said Denver attorney David Seligman. "If it’s your debt, you put your name on the lawsuit.”
UCHealth executives disagree, and its leadership insisted they’re being “completely transparent.”
“The implication is that we’re hiding from this – or we’re hiding from it – I just take issue with that,” UCHealth Chief Legal Officer Jacki Cooper Melmed said in a recent interview.
As for why UCHealth stopped suing under its own name in 2020, Cooper Melmed couldn’t say.
Only an ongoing lawsuit still winding its way through Denver District Court provides a possible explanation.
During a deposition in which a UCHealth employee was asked why the provider benefited when it is “not a plaintiff in the lawsuits,” the employee provided a straightforward answer.
“It would be optically bad,” the employee replied.
Why?
“It would look like UCHealth was filing these suits,” the employee said.
Show Us Your Bills
Like many of the investigations I work on, this one started out of nothing more than a moment of curiosity.
Years ago, the 9NEWS Show Us Your Bills investigation uncovered a variety of shortcomings in medical billing. By 2018, I was in need of a break, to be quite frank.
But, in early 2020, I found myself curious about the issue once again. Specifically, I wanted to know whether there was any good way to tell just how active medical providers were when it came to suing patients. It's not something most providers like to discuss. When pressed, hospital spokespersons will tell you only a small fraction of their patients ever end up in court. That’s true, but to the thousands of Coloradans sued every year by their one-time medical provider, it’s hardly comforting.
I started looking at court filings.
I started with UCHealth, the largest provider of care in the state and one of the best known.
I searched all debt cases in which “University of Colorado Health” was listed as the plaintiff.
Here’s what I found:
University of Colorado Health:
- 2018: 2,576 lawsuits
- 2019: 3,068 lawsuits
I looked at other providers. Here’s what I found:
HCA/HealthOne:
- 2018: 276
- 2019: 313
SCL Health:
- 2018: 205
- 2019: 1,160
Centura:
- 2018: 491
- 2019: 14
At least on the surface, it appeared as if the largest provider in the state was also one of the most active in terms of suing patients.
By the time I was thinking about doing a story on this, the pandemic hit. The world stopped. The court systems stopped. And, yes, the lawsuits stopped, as well.
Just like all of you, the focus of my job instantly changed and, for months, reporting on the pandemic occupied all my time.
I didn’t start going through court records again until late in summer 2020. That’s when I found something that surprised me.
While SCL Health, for example, was back to suing patients close to its 2018 and 2019 pace, UCHealth had stopped. Almost completely.
As I would eventually find out, in the second half of 2020, UCHealth sued only two people under its name. I think, at the time, I assumed the pandemic had caused the Colorado medical giant to change its policy. Suing patients in the middle of a pandemic might not make for good public relations, right?
Turns out, I was wrong.
This investigation was born out of those days, but it really was fast-tracked once we at 9NEWS joined with the Colorado Sun, the Colorado News Collaborative and KFF Health News to bring what we hope will be a larger discussion about medical debt in general.
Often, stories about medical debt concentrate on some eye-popping numbers. Yes, there are people who owe five or six-figures to hospitals and providers, but more often, much of the medical debt in this country ranges from three to four-figures.
Thousands of Coloradans, we have found, owe anywhere from $500 to $5,000. That’s what debt looks like in this country. It's small enough to force people into monthly payment plans but not big enough to garner much media attention. That, I think, needs to stop.
> In the videos below, patients sued by UCHealth share their stories:
Colorado Sun reporter John Ingold and I spent months talking to patients, experts and – yes – even UCHealth. We visited an Adams County courtroom one morning to see how these debts manifest themselves within the legal system. (It’s messy and complicated and worthy of additional coverage.)
I hope this is the start of a new conversation.
And, I deeply hope you will tell us your stories once again.
It’s why here at 9NEWS, we are once again asking you to send your medical billing horror stories to showusyourbills@9news.com. I personally see every one of those that come in. I’d ask you to share with us a way to contact you either by email or phone.
There’s more to be done here.
We know UCHealth isn’t the only Colorado medical provider that now routinely uses a third-party vendor as a listed plaintiff in debt collection cases. We also know some medical providers, including the largest for-profit system in the state, do not sue patients for unpaid medical bills.
More 9NEWS Originals:
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