Date Posted: Monday, January 24, 2005 at 1:30 PM CST
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: George Bellas
Clifford Law Offices
(312) 899-9090
Richard Scruggs
The Scruggs Law Firm, P.A.
(662) 281-1212
CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT FILED BY UNINSURED PATIENTS AGAINST CARLE
FOUNDATION HOSPITAL IN ILLINOIS STATE COURT
CARLE CHARGED WITH VIOLATING STATE CONSUMER FRAUD LAWS BY ENGAGING IN
DISCRIMINATION AGAINST UNINSURED PATIENTS INCLUDING CHARGING SUCH
PATIENTS MORE THAN ANY OTHER PATIENT GROUP
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- Suit Reveals Carle Hospital to Be Perpetrator of Shockingly Abusive
Collection Tactics, Having Issued Hundreds of Arrest Warrants –
Known
As “Body Attachments” – Against Poor People Who Cannot
Afford to Pay Their Bill -
Oxford, MI, and Champaign-Urbana, IL, January 24, 2005 – 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 www.nfplitigation.com.
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