{"id":13490,"date":"2019-06-26T08:51:35","date_gmt":"2019-06-26T12:51:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/?p=13490"},"modified":"2019-06-26T08:51:35","modified_gmt":"2019-06-26T12:51:35","slug":"hospitals-earn-little-from-suing-for-unpaid-bills-for-patients-it-can-be-ruinous","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/?p=13490","title":{"rendered":"Hospitals Earn Little From Suing For Unpaid Bills. For Patients, It Can Be &#8216;Ruinous&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>(By Selena Simmons-Duffin for NPR)<\/p>\n<p>The Fredericksburg General District Court is a red-brick courthouse with Greek columns in a picturesque, Colonial Virginia town. A horse and carriage are usually parked outside the visitor center down the street.<\/p>\n<p>On a sunny morning \u2014 the second Friday in June \u2014 the first defendant at court is a young woman, Daisha Smith, 24, who arrives early; she has just come off working an overnight shift at a group home for the elderly. She is here because the local hospital sued her for an unpaid medical bill \u2014 a bill she didn&#8217;t know she owed until her wages started disappearing out of her paycheck.<\/p>\n<p>The hospital, Mary Washington, sues so many patients that the court reserves a morning every month for its cases.\u00a0 Continue reading <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/health-shots\/2019\/06\/25\/735385283\/hospitals-earn-little-from-suing-for-unpaid-bills-for-patients-it-can-be-ruinous?utm_campaign=KHN%3A%20First%20Edition&amp;utm_source=hs_email&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_content=74064598&amp;_hsenc=p2ANqtz-8jC3UVUy-zUGrPB5sEFutRgorDeXQG55Sw0oTHw_OJup1g6BNZNOGV-MFFo7Od8hicFgm1znRQz9W_a7P7TAQMf4YRRg&amp;_hsmi=74064598\">article here&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/NPR-logo.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3902\" src=\"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/NPR-logo.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"152\" height=\"55\" srcset=\"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/NPR-logo.png 152w, https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/NPR-logo-150x55.png 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 152px) 100vw, 152px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<pre>Notice: The link provided above connects readers to the full content of the posted article. The URL (internet address) for this link is valid on the posted date; medicarereport.org cannot guarantee the duration of the link\u2019s validity. Also, the opinions expressed in these postings are the viewpoints of the original source and are not explicitly endorsed by AMAC, Inc.; the AMAC Foundation, Inc.; or medicarereport.org.<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(By Selena Simmons-Duffin for NPR) The Fredericksburg General District Court is a red-brick courthouse with Greek columns in a picturesque,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-care-finance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13490"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13491,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13490\/revisions\/13491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medicarereport.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}