We recently reported how Mary Rutan Hospital in Bellefontaine, Ohio, has dramatically increased the number of lawsuits it has filed against patients over unpaid medical bills.
We found that, in many cases, people lacked basic legal representation.
While every case is different, Signal Statewide spoke with several legal experts who offered general advice about what people can do if they find themselves in this situation. We also compiled some resources they can consult.
Avoiding medical debt
One way to reduce what you owe is finding out if you qualify for financial assistance.
Ohio’s Hospital Care Assurance Program requires hospitals to provide basic, medically necessary care for free to anyone who makes less than 100% of the poverty level – which is $32,150 a year for someone who lives in a household with four people – but who isn’t enrolled in Medicaid.
Hospitals also must have a plan to provide financial assistance to people who make more than that. They also must tell patients about the terms. But it’s up to each hospital to decide who qualifies for that help and how much help they give.
Berneta Haynes, a senior attorney with the National Consumer Law Center, said hospitals usually include this information on the back of bills, sometimes in small print. It’s also available on hospital websites – an organization called UHCAN has a full list of Ohio provider policies here.
Hospitals aren’t allowed to send patient debts to a debt collector while they’re reviewing whether someone is eligible for financial assistance, Haynes said, so applying can at least buy people more time.
Credit cards and medical debt
Haynes’ biggest advice was to not use a credit card to pay off an outstanding medical bill. She said this can eliminate someone’s ability to pursue financial assistance.
Medical debt has a lower interest rate than credit card payments. And a late credit-card payment can immediately hurt your credit score. But medical debt won’t show up for at least one year. (Fifteen states have banned medical debt from appearing on someone’ s credit scores altogether, but Ohio isn’t one of them.)
And while this isn’t always true – as is the case with Mary Rutan Hospital – some hospitals won’t sue patients over unpaid medical debts. But credit card companies frequently will.
If you end up getting sued
The first piece of advice that Matthew Curry, a lawyer in Delaware, Ohio, who defends people facing debt collection lawsuits, offered is for people to at least check with a lawyer if they get sued. Curry said it’s not usually worth hiring a lawyer over medical debts if the amount owed is small. But he said some lawyers with small practices, including him, answer their phones and will offer free consultations. Some lawyers will work for a flat rate of $300 to $500, he said.
If someone can’t or doesn’t want to hire a lawyer, they should try to get in touch with the lawyer for the hospital suing them to find out about what options they have for a payment plan, Curry said.
Once someone is served with a lawsuit, they have 28 days to answer the lawsuit in court. If they don’t show up to the court date on their summons, they lose the case automatically.
Losing a court case can cause someone to have their wages garnished, which can result in losing up to 25% of a paycheck. But showing up may give someone the chance to negotiate a plan with a smaller required payment.
“So it’s most important to not ignore it,” Curry said.
How to defend your case
During that 28-day period, defendants have a chance to respond to the allegations against them. The Ohio State Bar Association offers a guide on how to answer a civil lawsuit, including what information defendants need to provide in their response.
But Veronica Martinez, a managing attorney with Legal Aid of Western Ohio, said people facing a debt collection lawsuit should be careful what they say when they respond.
“Because if you say, ‘Yeah, I agree I owe this, I just can’t afford to pay it,’ you haven’t put a defense forward,” Martinez said. “So if you have any question that, ‘I think I probably owe something but I’m not sure this is the right amount,’ you want to state that.”
In constructing a defense, Martinez usually first checks what’s called an explanation of benefits – a document an insurance company produces after getting billed for service – to make sure everything was billed properly.
These documents should show how much a hospital charged, how much an insurance company paid and how much a patient owes. People can find them by contacting their insurer or by looking at their account information online.
“Sometimes I have seen where it just didn’t get processed through the insurance for whatever reason,” Martinez said.
Defendants can ask courts to give them more time to defend their case. A specific option is to file what’s called a demand for discovery, or a formal request for plaintiffs to provide evidence of their claim.
Martinez also said she commonly sees collections cases in which creditors have sued the wrong person – such as for “senior/junior” situations where different generations in a family share the same name.
Identity fraud also occurs. Martinez said if someone thinks this happened to them, they should file a police report that they can provide to the court.
So generally, if someone believes they’ve been mistakenly sued, they can compile evidence that they are the wrong person and provide it to the court.
The National Consumer Law Center also suggests that defendants can at least try to argue in court that a medical bill is unreasonable, such as if they can demonstrate the hospital charged them more than they would charge a private insurer or a government insurance program such as Medicare or Medicaid.
“Some judges may be sympathetic to your argument,” said Haynes with the National Consumer Law Center. “There’s a chance that if you raise this in court that a hospital may settle rather than proving the charges are reasonable.”
If you lost a lawsuit you weren’t aware of
Curry said people frequently discover they were sued only after their wages are garnished.
Martinez said also she’s seen plenty of cases in which people never were properly served and thus never got a chance to defend themselves.
“I see it all the time. A lot of times the lawsuit was served to someone’s prior address and the forwarding mail service has expired,” she said. “And they won’t know until they got a notice of garnishment, and so then they’re panicking.”
People can try to avoid this situation by taking care of a medical bill as quickly as possible or by notifying medical providers of new addresses, Martinez said.
But for someone who’s already been garnished over what they think is a wrong judgment, Martinez said people need to file what’s called a motion to vacate judgment under the state’s civil rules of procedure. She recommends someone find a lawyer to help them do this.
More resources
The National Consumer Law Center publishes a “surviving debt” guide – chapter 11 is about medical debt.
Legal Aid of Ohio also provides free legal services to income-eligible people.
Generally, you have to have low income to qualify, although income requirements are looser for senior citizens and veterans. You can check for eligibility information and also find your local chapter here. To apply for Legal Aid of Western Ohio Inc., click here.
Local bar associations and other groups also have lawyer referral networks. Click here for resources from Legal Aid of Ohio.