US hospital chain vows to cancel medical debt for thousands of patients
Advocate Health, the third largest non-profit health system in the country, has announced it will cancel more than 11,500 debt judgments it holds against people who failed to pay medical bills.
The move comes after more than a year of public scrutiny of the hospital conglomerate’s aggressive debt collection practices – including news articles by the Guardian and other media outlets and a study by the Duke University School of Law and the state treasurer of North Carolina, where the chain is headquartered.
The study, released in August 2023, found that the hospital group filed more debt lawsuits against patients – 2,482 – than any other hospital system in the state between 2017 and 2022.
Advocate Health – which operates under the name Atrium Health in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama – called the debt-cancelation initiative a “bold step to address medical debt”. It said it will cancel all liens it holds against the homes and other real estate belonging to indebted patients, and forgive all debts associated with those liens.
The debt forgiveness will help patients like Terry Belk, a 68-year-old used car salesman in Charlotte, North Carolina, who was sued twice by the hospital system – including for more than $23,000 in 2005 for his late wife’s breast cancer treatment and nearly $7,000 in 2010 for his own prostate cancer treatment.
