UCHealth named in lawsuit for alleged illegal tactics to sue for medical debt, says it would be

[ck4829]

UCHealth named in lawsuit for alleged illegal tactics to sue for medical debt, says it would be "optically bad" to use company name

As state legislators debate new regulations in the session this week aiming to hold accountable some of Colorado's major nonprofit hospitals — with a state agency claiming some of these tax-exempt hospitals are raking in profits and not giving enough back — CBS News Colorado has learned one of those hospitals is also the subject of a lawsuit for allegedly illegal tactics to collect medical debts from low-income patients.

"I hope no one ever has to go through what I've been through, because it was really hard for me," said Cathy Woods Sullivan, a former patient of UCHealth's University of Colorado Hospital in Aurora.

Woods Sullivan is one of the named plaintiffs on a class action lawsuit claiming UCHealth used a collections agency called Credit Service Company to sue potentially thousands of patients for medical debt over recent years. The suit alleges this is an illegal way for the nonprofit hospital system to avoid having to put its name on the debt lawsuits.

According to a motion filed in the suit, obtained by CBS News Colorado, UCHealth admitted in a deposition that suing patients itself would be "optically bad."

https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/uchealth-lawsuit-collections-medical-debts-credit-service-company-optically-bad-low-income-patients-colorado-nonprofit-hospitals/