Uninsured and underinsured patients are now being solicited for credit at a time they are most vulnerable: When they are seeking medical care from a health care provider or hospital.
In an article in Business Week entitled: “Fresh Pain For The Uninsured“, writers Brian Grow and Robert Berner address this growing credit market.
It used to be that a patient with little or no health insurance was safe in assuming that, health care providers, particularly not-for-profit hospitals, would except small monthly payments until their bill was paid. According to Grow and Berner, this is no longer the case.
The article reports that more and more hospitals are transferring their debt to financial companies and credit card companies such as General Electric, U.S. Bancorp, Capital One, and Citigroup who in turn charge interests rates as high as 27% to patients for their healthcare.
For outpatient medical services, “point of sale” healthcare credit card applications are becoming more common in doctor’s offices with some patients reporting to Business Week that they signed agreements to repay medical expenses not realizing or being told that they were signing an agreement with a credit card company and that they were going to have to pay interest on the medical debt they were incurring.
With an estimated 47 million uninsured individuals and 16 million underinsured individuals that earn too much to qualify for government medical benefits, the issue of healthcare specific credit cards as a way to pay for much needed medical care will be an issue that many Americans can expect to confront over the next few years.
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