OXFORD, Mich. and CHAMPAIGN-URBANA, Ill., Jan. 24 /PRNewswire/ -- The following release is being issued today by The Scruggs Law Firm, P.A.:
A class action lawsuit brought by uninsured patients was filed today in Illinois state court against Carle Foundation Hospital (“Carle”), with widespread community support and outrage at Carle’s discriminatory treatment of uninsured patients, including its highly controversial billing and debt collection practices that has included issuing ‘body attachments’ arrest warrants against uninsured patients who cannot afford to pay the inflated rates Carle specifically charges the uninsured.
The lawsuit, which was filed in the Illinois Circuit Court of Champaign County, is the 65th lawsuit filed against 60 hospital systems in state and federal courts as part of a nationwide class action litigation that commenced on June 17, 2004. The litigation currently spans 24 states.
The suit charges the hospital of forcing uninsured patients to pay unreasonable and highly inflated rates, failing to provide them with the opportunity to apply for charity care, and using reprehensibly aggressive and humiliating collection tactics against people who cannot afford to pay the inflated bills. These practices violate the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act and breach Carle’s duty under state law to only charge people the fair and reasonable value of the services provided to them.
The suit depicts Carle’s practice of regularly charging uninsured patients rates that far exceed the amount charged to other patients. Moreover, these inflated rates are concealed from an uninsured patient when he or she is admitted to the hospital. Carle forces these patients to “consent” to pay all charges as they are admitted to the hospital, most of the time under duress of pain and illness, without informing them that they will be charged many times more than all other patients for the same exact treatment. Carle’s unlawful scheme also includes efforts to dissuade uninsured patients from receiving financial assistance from the hospital by routinely placing numerous obstacles in the way that prevent patients from applying for charity care. As a result, Carle issues inflated hospital bills to thousands of uninsured patients who cannot afford to pay them.
Beyond that, Carle then egregiously uses extreme ‘anything but community care’ tactics to collect outstanding bills from even the poorest patients, many of whom have been deemed indigent by the courts of Champaign County, IL. Carle has filed hundreds of lawsuits and garnished patients’ wages and social security checks. Since 1995, Carle has sought 164 arrest warrants, known as ‘body attachments,’ for their patients who owe money to Carle for missing a court hearing. ‘Body attachments’ are such an extreme and abominable practice that even most private companies will not use them. After mounting pressure from consumer advocacy groups and nationwide media attention, the hospital announced that it would stop the practice.
George Bellas, an attorney with Clifford Law Offices of Chicago who is representing the plaintiffs, stated, “The basis of Carle’s nonprofit status, under which it reaps hundreds of millions of dollars annually from taxpayers, is to provide affordable care to those who need it in return for total tax exemption. By charging uninsured patients inflated prices -- in fact, rates far higher than anyone else -- and then using the most aggressive and humiliating collection tactics imaginable when they simply can’t afford to pay the bills, Carle has completely breached its legal and moral obligations and has betrayed the communities it is supposed to be serving.”
“The abusive practices heaped on the uninsured by hospitals such as Carle are illegal, offend our sense of morality, and must be stopped. To actively try to throw people in prison, to get a judgment issued against them, and to go after their wages simply because they are too poor to pay a medical bill is unconscionable. Poor people who can’t afford to pay for necessary medical services shouldn’t be sued in the first place.”
Carle is a 300-bed facility located in Urbana, IL that serves as the primary teaching hospital for the University of Illinois College of Medicine. It is the only locally owned and operated hospital in the Champaign-Urbana area, and its purported focus is to serve the community. Carle is a profitable hospital and earned $13.9 million in 2002 alone. As of June 2002, Carle’s parent non-profit company, The Carle Foundation, had $28.18 million in unrestricted cash assets in an account in the Cayman Islands, a place known for its banking secrecy and financial schemes.
The law firms representing the plaintiff are the Scruggs Law Firm of Oxford, MI, Clifford Law Offices of Chicago, IL, and Phebus & Koester of Champaign, IL.
To learn more about the class action lawsuits by uninsured patients against nonprofit hospital systems and nonprofit hospitals, please visit http://www.nfplitigation.com/.
Contact: George Bellas Richard Scruggs Clifford Law Offices The Scruggs Law Firm, P.A. (312) 899-9090 (662) 281-1212
The Scruggs Law Firm, P.A.
CONTACT: George Bellas, Clifford Law Offices, +1-312-899-9090; RichardScruggs, The Scruggs Law Firm, P.A., +1-662-281-1212
Web site: http://www.nfplitigation.com/
