Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Tennessee

Re: medical billing errors

There is good news and bad news. The bad news is that Tennessee has a 6-year statute of limitations on breach of contract ations. Failure to pay a hospital bill is a breach of your contract to pay for services. Thus the cause would remain viable until 2008, if it was performed in 2002.

The good news is that the Richard Scruggs lawfirm in Mississippi has filed about 46 class action lawsuits against hospitals who charge the uninsured the full retail price for services. Scruggs is arguing that the hospitals should in fact eat more of the costs as part of their tax benefit of having nonprofit status.

In light of those lawsuits, many hospitals are voluntarily re-examining their policies on billing full price to patients who are self-insured with health savings accounts or are uninsured, which may be the case for you.

I would contact the billing dept. of the hospital and tell them you are willing to pay the insurance contracted price or even the Medicare/Medicaid price that the hospital bills for the same service. However, you would prefer to take part in a class action lawsuit against the hospital before you would pay the full retail price.

You will have more credibilty if you get on the Internet and research the Scruggs lawfirm and the hospital lawsuits and can show your local hospital that you have done your homework, and you mean business!

Mike Guth

http://riskmgmt.biz/prose.htm