Date Posted: Wednesday, July 21, 2004 at 12:30 PM CST

Contact: Richard Scruggs
The Scruggs Law Firm, P.A.
(662) 281-1212  


AMERICAN HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION CHARGED AS A DEFENDANT
IN CLASS ACTION LAWSUITS BROUGHT BY UNINSURED PATIENTS AGAINST NONPROFIT HOSPITAL SYSTEMS AND HOSPITALS

EIGHT NEW CLASS ACTION LAWSUITS FILED TODAY BY UNINSURED PATIENTS
AGAINST NONPROFIT HOSPITAL SYSTEMS AND HOSPITALS IN FLORIDA, GEORGIA, MICHIGAN, NEW MEXICO, NEW YORK, OHIO AND PENNSYLVANIA

-- 39 Class Action Litigations By Uninsured Patients Underway In 20 States --


For Immediate Release


Oxford, Mississippi, (July 21, 2004) -- The American Hospital Association (“AHA”), the hospital industry’s trade association, has been charged as a defendant in class action lawsuits brought by uninsured patients against nonprofit hospital systems and hospitals in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania.  In addition to naming the AHA as a defendant in eight new class action lawsuits, all previous class action lawsuits filed since June 17, 2004, are being amended to also name AHA as a defendant.

These eight new class action lawsuits by uninsured patients also name nonprofit hospital systems and hospitals in Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania as defendants.  The lawsuits charge that the defendant nonprofit hospital systems and hospitals, working with the AHA, have failed to provide government required charity care to uninsured patients.  With the filings of these lawsuits, 39 litigations are underway in 20 states against defendants that control approximately 340 hospitals in aggregate.

The new class action lawsuits that have been or will be filed today by uninsured patients are:

• In Florida:  Defendants: Orlando Regional Healthcare System, Inc. and American Hospital Association; United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida Orlando Division; litigation filed by Carlton & Carlton, P.A. and Law Offices of Archie Lamb, LLC;

• In Georgia:  Defendants:  Northeast Georgia Medical Center and American Hospital Association; United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia; litigation filed by Vroon & Crongeyer, LLP;

• In Michigan: Defendant: Trinity Health-Michigan, Inc. and Trinity Health Corporation and American Hospital Association; United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan; litigation filed by Kelley Cawthorne and Vroon & Crongeyer, LLP;
        Defendant: William Beaumont Hospital and Beaumont Properties, Inc. and American Hospital Association; United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan; litigation filed by Kelley Cawthorne and Vroon & Crongeyer, LLP;

• In New Mexico: Defendant: Presbyterian Healthcare Services and American Hospital Association; United States District Court for the District of New Mexico; litigation filed by Moody & Warner, P.C., Law Offices of Archie Lamb, LLC and E. Kirk Wood, Esq.;

• In New York: Defendant: Long Island Jewish Medical Center, North Shore University Hospital in Manhasset, North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, Inc., and American Hospital Association; United States District Court Eastern District of New York; litigation filed by Bernstein, Liebhard & Lifshitz, LLP, Vroon & Crongeyer, LLP and Barrett Law Office, P.A.;

• In Ohio: Defendant: ProMedica Health System, Inc. and American Hospital Association; United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Western Division; litigation filed by Weisman, Kennedy  & Berris Co., L.P.A. and Zoll & Kranz, LLC;

• In Pennsylvania: Defendant: Albert Einstein Medical Center, Albert Einstein Healthcare Network, Jefferson Health System and American Hospital Association; United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania; litigation filed by Law Offices Bernard M. Gross, P.C. and Vroon & Crongeyer, LLP and Bernstein Liebhard & Lifshitz, LLP.

As described in the lawsuits, co-defendant AHA has fashioned and promoted to, among others, the administrations and Boards of Trustees of nonprofit hospital systems and hospitals, business methods calculated to defeat the rights of uninsured patients even though the co-defendant nonprofit hospital systems and hospitals continue to amass enormous economic benefits from tax exemptions related to providing charitable healthcare to this patient class.  Among other things, the AHA encourages its co-defendant nonprofit hospital systems and hospitals, to perform “wallet biopsies” on uninsured patients.  Through these “wallet biopsies”, the AHA’s co-defendants’ priorities are not necessarily on the appropriate healthcare treatment for the uninsured patient but rather on gouging the uninsured patient with exorbitantly inflated prices, in some cases up to 300 percent more than for insured patients.  If and when the uninsured patient can’t pay, the co-defendant nonprofit hospital systems and hospitals often complete the procedure by intimidating and harassing the uninsured patient through goon-like and predatory collection tactics that frequently scar the patient for life, including the trauma of personal bankruptcy.  These “wallet biopsies” and collection tactics by the co-defendant nonprofit hospital systems and hospitals, which are advised by the co-defendant AHA, have both the purpose and effect, in many instances, of successfully discouraging the uninsured patient from ever again seeking healthcare at the defendant nonprofit hospital.  This, in turn, enables the defendant nonprofit hospital to further avoid its government obligation to provide charitable healthcare to the uninsured.  

Furthermore, the AHA schemes side-by-side with its co-defendants, in implementing numerous other charitable healthcare avoidance tactics, including working with the co-defendant nonprofit hospital systems and hospitals with respect to manipulative accounting techniques and “spinning” the public and governmental authorities away from the wrongdoings being perpetrated by its co-defendants on uninsured patients.  With defendant AHA’s involvement, its co-defendant nonprofit hospital systems and hospitals have for years siphoned from the country’s financially hard-pressed healthcare systems, local communities and states potentially trillions of dollars, according to some estimates.

These new class action lawsuits detail that the AHA’s co-defendant hospital systems and hospitals require uninsured patients to pay unfair and unreasonable healthcare prices that are far in excess of the discounted amounts accepted by these same defendants from insured patients, including those who are privately insured or use third party payors such as Medicare and Medicaid.  The facts, as demonstrated in the lawsuits, are clear.  The defendant nonprofit hospital systems and hospitals force uninsured patients to pay the “gross” or “sticker” price for healthcare.  Consequently, and in direct contradiction of their missions and government obligations, the defendants make the uninsured patients, the patient group that can least afford such expenditures, to pay full excessive healthcare costs.

To learn more about the class action lawsuits by uninsured patients against nonprofit hospital systems and nonprofit hospitals, please visit www.nfplitigation.com

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