Harborview Medical Center quietly checks on charity patients' credit

[flamingyouth]

To test whether its patients are truly needy, Harborview Medical Center has been quietly pulling credit information on unsuspecting patients who ask for help paying their medical bills.

The public hospital, the state's largest provider of free medical care, hasn't been telling those patients that it uses a TransUnion credit tool to verify their income. The tool relies on a person's monthly debt spending to determine his monthly income and whether the patient qualifies for financial help.

Harborview officials said they give patients proper notice, but after the Seattle P-I asked about the practice, the hospital said it is exploring whether to disclose the information more clearly on patient forms.

"We want to be sensitive to people's concerns," said Denise Leverentz, Harborview's director of business and decision support and financial counseling.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/305251_harborview27.html

[Sapphire Blue]

1. If a patient is requesting financial assistance, I can understand the hospital verifying...

... the patient's income. But doing a credit check? Just what are they looking for?

From the article:

"Are they looking for lines of credit that they might be able to tap for payments or for services?" Rukavina asked. "That would be very problematic."

IMO, that would seem to be one motive for doing these credit checks.

And more from the article:

"What they're trying to measure isn't shown by a credit report. It doesn't show income, it shows debt," said Chi Chi Wu, a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center.

Someone please enlighten me as to how they can possibly justify this invasion of privacy! Or is it as simple as poor people not having any rights??? :puke:

[EFerrari]

3. This is disgusting and most likely illegal w/out disclosure.

:kick:

[Sapphire Blue]

4. Apparently they believe that they're covered by financial-disclosure forms...

More from the article...

"Patients currently sign financial-disclosure forms that give consent for "further verification," but they don't mention credit information."

And a fitting response, also from the article:

"Mark Rukavina, executive director of The Access Project, a Boston-based group that works to improve health care access and is affiliated with Brandeis University, said: "If that's your policy, make it clear that you're running their credit reports and give them an opportunity to talk to you about it. It seems sensible that you would disclose that to a patient."

[progressivebydesign]

16. credit reports DO show your empoloyer

that would be relevant if they're claiming indigence. And it shows if they have.. perhaps.. a luxury SUV parked out in the parking lot.. things like that. Sadly, shit like this wouldn't be necessary if 1) we had decent health insurance and care available to all and 2) people didn't continually fleece the system that is in place to help the truly needy.

[babylonsister]

2. This is a public hospital and they're running credit checks on people?

I think they should very publically disclose the names of those who are ripping the system off; I would imagine that practice might stop real suddenly if that is indeed the method to their madness. This is outrageous for those who go in good faith and need the services; it also drives up the cost of running a 'free' hospital.

[mondo joe]

5. No problem with the practice BUT it has to be done with proper notice.

The resource is too scarce to give it to those who can afford to pay.

[Cleita]

6. If we had NHC, this wouldn't be necessary.

If the PNHP plan were implemented, all hospitals would receive enough money every year to fill all their beds and pay for a full staff, equipment and supplies for that year. The idea behind this is to fill all the beds with sick people who need them not those who can afford them.

[hashibabba]

7. Where is our health care reform when we need it.

I can see asking for verification of income, but just how far will they continue to go? Next we'll have to provide our checking account. I already have to provide two months' worth to be eligible for two programs.

So if I've managed to save $700 over several months, I can't use it for my major car repairs that I need. Will they make me pay them first? Or do they just deny service?

I don't like them having free access to my checking accounts OR to my credit reports. They don't need that information and I don't trust that they'll use their system wisely or fairly.

Edited to say thanks to SB for the heads up! I agree that they need to make it clear to people that they're using this system to disqualify people.

[primavera]

8. Good question

I think this sort of practice just highlights the need for a solution to the much bigger problem of providing health care to the people of this country. Most hospitals will receive no criticism on this score because they're private and will cheerfully let you bleed to death on the sidewalk if you can't cough up the cash and it will never occur to anyone to criticize that fact. Harborview is one of the dwindling number of places that will actually provide care to the daily growing number of people who cannot afford skyrocketing insurance premiums. It is a simple fact that the number of people who cannot afford health insurance is growing while the number of institutions able to provide care to them is shrinking. What are public health facilities supposed to do? The state only provides them with a limited budget, taxpayers don't want to have to have to pay more taxes, yet the patients keep coming, requiring care, and more and more lack health insurance. Places like Harborview therefore face an unsolvable problem which was not of their making. I actually used to work at Harborview many, many years ago and I can tell you, it's a run-down, dilapidated old building in kind of a crummy part of town, and none of their doctors drive Porches; it's not like they're getting all hard-core trying to squeeze money out of patients in order to pay for luxuries. If we're to avoid unsavory practices like the one mentioned in this article - and far worse ones still to come in the future - we have got to come up with a solution to the problem which creates the perceived need for such business practices, and find a way to extend affordable health care to everyone.

[bobbolink]

10. Where is our health care reform?

Nowhere.

Most people can't bring themselves to DEMAND IT, and that's the only thing that is going to get us Universal Single-Payer.

I'm ready to start yelling and throwing things, hashibaba--what about you?!

:hug: :loveya:

[hashibabba]

14. We have some great posts on this thread! Thank you!

Yes, Bobbolink, I'm really ready to do some kicking and screaming. I'm sick and tired of the poor (children AND adults), ill and elderly in this country getting the shaft.

I have a number of rather poor friends who are Republicans and it just kills me that they're just making their situations worse by voting for these j@ck@sses. It's so sad. And we all suffer because of that ignorance.

[bobbolink]

9. "We want to be sensitive"

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:






:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[mntleo2]

11. LTTE to The Seattle PI:

Dear Editor:
I was amused almost 10 years ago when my employment used insurers for a nearby hospital to Harborview who evidently assumed a family's big night out would be waiting in a sparse waiting room for hours with several other ill families on a Saturday night with nothing but a torn financial magazine, a broken Tonka toy and a fish tank. This insurance company complained that families were "abusing" their coverage as if we plotted for ways we could jack up their costs. I wanted to tell them that I had to apologize, they were right, a Saturday night with a sick kid gasping for breath and a temperature of 102, oh yeah, it was like going to Disney Land all right ~ and I could hardly wait for that quality family time to come around again so I could "abuse" my insurance.

Soooo, Harborview is checking low income patient's credit to see if they are really poor. As if the poor would lie about being poor or the well to do would want to come to Harborview and are too cheap to visit the doctor they know and can afford. Harborview admits with this new system in place, it shows that a huge percentage, 73%, are not lying about their financial situation. If we had a national health care system in place, Harborview would not need to do this and they would have enough staff, enough beds and enough medical care to care for whomever came to them without such nonsense.

Meanwhile corporations are resisting national health care for reasons that are a mystery to me. Instead of enjoying the benefits millions of other enlightened citizens and businesses do in other parts of the world, they foolishly resist this idea while taking their employment opportunities overseas in droves. Or they refuse to cover their workers because of the rampant runaway of health care costs, so they say. The taxes corporations should pay anyway for being allowed to BE corporations and their workers, could in tandem cover the costs and it is a win-win situation for all

The problems being illustrated around Harborview's attempts to cover costs proves the desperate need for a better health care system. When oh when are we going to get national health care in place?

Cat Sullivan
(address and phone included)

[Sapphire Blue]

13. Excellent letter! I hope it gets published... and that Denise Leverentz reads it!

[undergroundpanther]

12. Rich people

Being picky and choosy, Society because they are conditioned to kiss the ass of wealthy people,and"experts" these fuckers can act as if they have the right to be gatekeepers over health and sickness. I hate this shit.HATE IT. THe sooner the rich are eaten the better. Fuck them all. Besides I have been to harborveiw once, and they took me off all my anti convulsants at once, no tapering dose nothing. And predictably it made me sick and have auras,I called my outside therapist on the pay phone told her this, and she called Harborveiw herself and chewed the harbor view doctors ass,awhile and he gave me my damn seizure meds.
Now I got 2 reasons to not go there. Fuck'em.

[progressivebydesign]

15. I have no problem with that.

People who can truly afford care and are trying to get it for free are harming those who truly need care. I have no issue with this.