Hospitals softening stance on patient payments in response to demands from states, uninsured.

Health Care Strategic Management, June, 2005

A group of 18 Minnesota hospitals agreed to reduce charges to many uninsured patients and to refrain from aggressive billing practices.

Minnesota Attorney General Mike Hatch praised the two-year, voluntary agreement. The hospitals belong to four major integrated delivery networks: Allina Hospitals & Clinics, Minneapolis; HealthEast Care System, St. Paul; North Memorial Health Care, Robbinsdale; and Park Nicollet Health Services, St. Louis Park.

Terms of the deal include a provision that a hospital will not charge a patient whose annual household income is less than $125,000 more for any uninsured treatment that the hospital would have charged the insurance company which provided that hospital with the most revenue for its services in the previous...

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