JACKSON - Some of the country's largest nonprofit hospitals are targeted in class action lawsuits alleging they have distorted the extent of their charity care while using punishing tactics to obtain payments from uninsured patients. The lawsuits were filed late Wednesday by Richard Scruggs, a Mississippi attorney who earned millions of dollars and a national reputation with his legal pursuits of the tobacco and asbestos industries. The lawsuits claim that hospitals in Illinois, Minnesota, Ohio, Texas, Georgia, Alabama, Florida and Tennessee used "creative" accounting practices to "grossly distort the small amount of charity care they provide to uninsured patients." Scruggs said the hospitals are "hoarding billions of dollars while dispensing relative pennies in health care."
Posted by Editor at June 19, 2004 01:48 AM