More North Carolina Hospital Systems Cancel Medical Debt Judgements for Residents

By Consumers for Quality Care, on November 20, 2024

Four North Carolina hospital systems will join Atrium Health in releasing liens placed on the homes of consumers who owe medical debt, according to The Charlotte Ledger.  

Gastonia-based CaroMont Health, Asheville-based Mission Health, Sampson Regional in southeastern North Carolina, and Community Health Systems, which owns Lake Norman Regional Hospital in Mooresville, will soon stop this practice if they haven’t already done so. Collectively, these five hospital systems have been responsible for nearly all the lawsuits filed in the state against consumers that owed medical debt. In a five-year period, these five hospital systems sued nearly 6,000 patients for over $58 million. 

Rebecca Cerese, Health Policy Advocate for the NC Justice Center, applauded the hospitals’ decisions to release liens on patients’ homes. “We’re so excited that these hospital systems are realizing the detrimental impact that these liens have on people. People build generational wealth through their homes,” she said. “They should not be losing that because they got sick or had an accident.”  

North Carolina hospital systems have been notorious for aggressively pursuing medical debt, and under state law, they were allowed to place liens on patients’ homes until their medical bills were paid. Though medical debt is pervasive throughout the country, North Carolina has one of the highest rates of medical indebtedness in the country, with roughly one in five residents carrying medical debt.   

State officials have taken steps to address the crisis. Last year, North Carolina became the 40th in the nation to expand Medicaid, helping more low-income consumers get the medical care they need without fear of going into debt. And earlier this year, government officials worked with all 99 hospitals in the state to agree to retire medical debt dating back to 2014 for Medicaid beneficiaries. These hospitals also agreed to implement new policies to prevent consumers from incurring debt going forward.  

Confronting a medical issue comes with its own worries – medical debt should not be one of them. CQC applauds efforts to cancel existing medical debt, but we urge the nation’s elected leaders to address the root causes of the medical-debt crisis.