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Uninsured patients fighting back.

Article Excerpt
WHEN NORENE POPE FAILED TO pay her $14,400 Baptist Health hospital bill in 2004, she was sued by the hospital's collection company.

But when the hospital discovered that Pope, an uninsured Lonoke woman, didn't have the cash to pay, it dismissed the suit on Feb. 14 and wrote off her bill.

That didn't end the case for Pope, though. She filed a countersuit against Baptist Health of Little Rock in which she claims she was billed more because she didn't have health insurance. And she claims the hospital went after her like a bulldog to collect the money.

Baptist Health spokesman Mark Lowman said the hospital charges all patients the same rate, regardless of if they have insurance. And patients without health insurance get 20 percent knocked off their bills right from the start. He also denied that the hospital uses aggressive tactics to collect outstanding bills.

"In 2004, we provided over $72 million in health care services, of which we were reimbursed for less than 4 percent," he said. "That could hardly be considered aggressive collection efforts."

Pope is being represented by Scruggs Law Firm in Oxford, Miss., which is flooding courts nationwide with lawsuits against nonprofit hospitals like Baptist Health. The law firm has 45 federal lawsuits and 25 lawsuits in state courts pending.

Last month, a U.S. District Court judge in Little Rock tossed out another lawsuit the Scruggs firm filed against Baptist Health, saying federal court wasn't the...

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