WASHINGTON — The largest health system in North Carolina simply wasn’t interested in canceling its patients’ medical debt. That is, until the state government dangled billions of dollars in incentive payments.
Other health systems have gotten just cents on the dollar to cancel unpaid bills they probably couldn’t collect on anyhow — take Cook County, Ill., which aims to pay about a penny per dollar to cancel an estimated $1 billion of medical debt.
Atrium Health’s decision to hold out paid off. As part of the state’s new Medicaid expansion, North Carolina will instead give hospitals about $3.9 billion to erase $4 billion in medical debt, using federal funds. The program imposes some requirements on hospitals to bolster their financial assistance for people with low incomes.
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