Hospital Debt Collection Harsh Tactics Broke Laws

A Minnesota hospital company that worked with debt-collection firm Accretive Health is in hot water with the federal government over allegedly harassing sick patients for money in the emergency department and at their bedsides. The University of Minnesota Medical Center in Minneapolis, a Fairview Health Services hospital, could get booted from Medicare and Medicaid as a consequence of these alleged activities, according to the Star Tribune. Lesser sanctions are more likely, however, the newspaper reports. Fairview Health Services, a nonprofit hospital chain, and Accretive Health have been under intense scrutiny since April, when Minnesota Attorney General Lori Swanson issued a six-volume report accusing the companies' employees of harsh tactics including demanding payments upfront from emergency room patients and pressing bedridden patients for money.

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Capital One Financial Corp. said delinquencies at its U.S. credit-card business rose in August, while charge-offs edged lower from the month earlier. Charge-offs--loans banks don't expect to be able to collect--and delinquencies have continued to recover at many financial institutions, although the progress has been uneven. Capital One's 30-day delinquency rate for U.S. credit cards rose to 3.37% last month from 3.09% in July, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. At its international credit-card business, the rate shrank to 4.77% from 4.78% a month earlier. Auto-loan delinquencies rose to 5.79% from 5.75%. Charge-offs at the U.S. card business fell to 2.58% in July from 2.62% a month earlier. Internationally, the rate rose to 5.43% from 4.97% a month earlier. Auto financing charge-offs were up at 1.84% from 1.54%. Capital One, which transformed from a credit-card lender to a bank just before the financial crisis hit, has lately benefited from improving credit quality and has been working to expand through acquisitions.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's administration unveiled a proposal Friday to intensify efforts to collect millions of dollars in debt owed to state government agencies, after complaints that the state has been too lax in seeking payment for delinquent accounts. "Any revenue that's out there, we want to capture," said Commissioner of Administration Paul Rainwater, the governor's top budget adviser. Rainwater said the state will standardize its collection policies across agencies and centralize some efforts, either through one agency or with a private company. He said the administration also will toughen enforcement by increasing penalties, withholding tax refunds for those with delinquent accounts and improving online payment options so people can pay their back-owed debts more easily. "What we really need is an aggressive, comprehensive approach," Rainwater told the Cash Management Review Board, a state panel that has been considering ways to improve collection efforts. In the most recent tally, more than $1.4 billion was owed to the state in past due accounts.

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Debt Settlement InfoBank (DSI) is the electronic repository for the securely maintained consumer records of more than 1,000 Debt Management and Settlement companies. Credit grantors, debt buyers, collection agencies and law firms may apply for controlled access to DSI's database to scrub portfolios against more than one million consumers currently enrolled in some type of credit resolution program. Electronic matches are quickly identified, and these immediate settlement opportunities will prove invaluable in every stage of the collection process. DSI provides the 21^st century means to expediently maximize revenue opportunities without incurring increased payroll and other types of related incremental costs.

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