Nursing homes are suing friends and family to collect on patients' bills

[ck4829]

Lucille Brooks was stunned when she picked up the phone before Christmas two years ago and learned a nursing home was suing her.

"I thought this was crazy," recalled Brooks, 74, a retiree who lives with her husband in a modest home in the Rochester suburbs. Brooks' brother had been a resident of the nursing home. But she had no control over his money or authority to make decisions for him. She wondered how she could be on the hook for his nearly $8,000 bill.

Brooks would learn she wasn't alone. Pursuing unpaid bills, nursing homes across this industrial city have been routinely suing not only residents but their friends and family, a KHN review of court records reveals. The practice has ensnared scores of children, grandchildren, neighbors, and others, many with nearly no financial ties to residents or legal responsibility for their debts.

The lawsuits illuminate a dark corner of America's larger medical debt crisis, which a KHN-NPR investigation found has touched more than half of all U.S. adults in the past five years.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/07/28/1113134049/nursing-homes-are-suing-friends-and-family-to-collect-on-patients-bills

[lark]

1. They can sue back and win big.

Unless they signed accepting financial responsibility, they are not responsible at all and this is bullshit harassment and should be thrown out of court at every opportunity if people would only fight back.

[bluedigger]

2. Filing spurious lawsuits should be grounds for immediate disbarment.

[2naSalit]

3. I don't think that's legal.

[3Hotdogs]

6. The nursing homes and assisted living facilities are taking in people who are in states of dementia.

So you drive your parent, sibling, friend to be admitted. In front of you is a form, "I agree to be responsible for paying ----'s bills.

"Clearly, ---- is not able to pay bills himself. We are not asking you to pay out of your own pocket. Just need someone to sign monthly checks to us to pay for his care."

And so it goes. You are fucked when ----- runs out of his savings.

[Generic Other]

4. They tricked people into accepting financial responsibility

forged others' names, just outright intimidated others. The billing office and CEO should be forced to pay huge fines to the victims.

[patphil]

5. Seems like this action by nursing homes might be prosecuted under the RICO law.

It's definitely an attempt to shakedown friends and families and extort money from them.

[Midnight Writer]

7. Capitalism. We get you.