Five health systems in North Carolina filed nearly all of the state's hospital lawsuits against patients for unpaid bills, according to a Duke Law report.
Hospitals in the state sued 7,517 patients and family members in the period from January 2017 to June 2022 in 5,922 lawsuits. Five unnamed hospitals and health systems initiated 96.5 percent of the filings.
The lawsuits resulted in $57.3 million in judgments against patients, averaging $16,623 per judgment. Some patients faced more than a decade of interest payments, with almost 60 percent of the judgments defaulting to the health systems, according to the report.
Patients have described how such financial stress affected their health and deterred them from seeking future care, the note said.
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