Aggressive Collections
Lawsuits Against Patients

St. Mary's Lawsuits and Garnishments

	Since January 2004, St. Mary's Hospital/SSM Health Care of Wisconsin has sued over 240 patients in Dane County Small Claims and Civil Court.
	Over 100 patients, including Walmart workers, janitorial, domestic and hotel service workers,  have had their wages garnished.
	Garnishment amounts ranged from a few hundred dollars to $4621 (which included $500 in attorney fees).
	Patients who are sued pay for court costs and hospital attorney fees, which can add hundreds to their bills.

"I have no means to pay... "  

S.B. was sued by Paskin and Oberwetter  (collections attorneys) on behalf of multiple medical creditors, including SSM Health Care of Wisconsin. This is a portion of the letter she sent to the court regarding her $3112.99 bill (which included $300 to cover Paskin and Oberwetter's attorney fees):

“... Paskin and Oberwetter know that I am not working, 3/4 of this total is MRB's. (...) M.. owes me and his children well over $10,000 in child support and $40,000 in extra expenses that I will never see. I have no means of paying this debt at this time. (...) 

 I'm doing the best that I can to keep a roof over [K's] head and food on the table.

Please help me with these bills.(...) Even $25.00 a month is milk, bread, eggs and not even enough gas to fill a tank of gas.”

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PAYing HOSPITAL’S Lawyers and court costs:
medical debt for walmart worker increases by 44% 

When St. Mary's sues patients in court, they often end up paying for more than their medical care: court costs, the hospital’s collections attorney’s fees, and interest can all add to the debt burden.  S.O., a Walmart worker, owed $329 to SSMHC and $226 to Dental Health (for a total of $556). Adding lawyer fees and court costs, S.O. was left with a $700 bill after the first judgment against her:

When the collections attorneys obtained a wage garnishment, S.O.’s bill had grown to $803--a 44% increase over her medical bills.

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Hospital Practices: Widespread Use of Aggressive Collections Tactics and Their Impacts

As the Access Project, a health care policy and advocacy group has pointed out, medical debt is not a consumer choice or a matter of bad budgeting the way that consumer debt might be. Yet the impact of medical debt can be enormous, even when the bill is not. Access Project studies such as Home Sick and The Consequences of Medical Debt have shown that even small amounts of medical debt ($500 and under) have been related to credit problems, housing insecurity and even bankruptcy.

The US Senate Committee on Finance, supported by numerous health advocacy and grass roots organizations, raised the alarm about the ways in which hospitals have, in the words of Senator Baucus, begun to act like “credit card companies.” All too often low income people are never told by a hospital about the possibility of charity care, but are instead pursued by aggressive collections agencies.
According to legal aid attorney Raymond Hartz, speaking to the Senate Committee on Finance, “everywhere I’ve practiced, hospitals are very efficient in getting judgments against those who owe them money, and then in collecting on those judgments through wage and bank account garnishments.
….. To be clear, we are talking about garnishing the wages of people already hovering on the edge of financial oblivion.”

While not all patients who fail to pay their hospital bills are low-income, we have found that many patients sued in small claims court by St. Mary’s/SSM Health Care of Wisconsin often work for typically low-wage employers like Walmart and other retail and service outlets. Once a judgment is made against a patient, they are not only liable for the original medical bill, but often for the hospital’s lawyer's fees, court costs, and interest of 12% on the judgment.

WHAT DO HOSPITALS GAIN FROM LAWSUITS THEY FILE?

According to our calculations, if St Mary’s Hospital had recovered the maximum of $5000 allowed by the small claims court for each of its garnishment actions taken from 2004 to the present, it would have recovered LESS THAN 1/2 of 1% of its ANNUAL net patient service revenue.

Talking of health systems in Minnesota that use “heavy-handed collection practices”, Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch said, "they are sending a message to the community. The best way to prevent these [uninsured] people from coming back is to pound them. Those people are too afraid to come back in."
(Minnesota Star Tribune, December 19, 2004)

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