Tuesday's Number $674,128

Tuesday is the day my local paper, the Syracuse Post-Standard, publishes the weekly business section. In addition to special features, tips from stock experts, budgeting advice and the like, we get the judgment and bankruptcy listings.

Since mid-2012, I've been tracking health care related filings. I include anything that is clearly a debt owed to a hospital, nursing home, physician or physician group, medical supplier, and so on; I do not include filings by insurance companies, many of which are so diversified it would not be a fair assumption that the filing is related to medical care or health insurance.

• This week, there were sixteen new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $683,180.
• There was one satisfied judgment, for $9,052.
• And there were no health care related bankruptcies.

I also track filings for each of the four Syracuse hospitals. Here’s the breakdown for this week:

•  Crouse had four, for $8,624
• St Josephs had none
• SUNY Upstate added eleven, for $650,623
• Community, part of Upstate, also had no filings.

There were two judgments for medical groups which totaled $14,881, making up the balance.

Crouse’s total includes a $9,052 ‘credit’ for the satisfied judgments. I subtract the satisfied judgments from the overall totals and from the individual hospital totals; the likelihood is that they've already been incorporated into the numbers at some point now, since I've been tracking this for two and a half years.  

And, this week, we have the largest filing ever since I've tracked the Numbers: a single judgment for SUNY Upstate was $400,617. I shudder to think of being in that family's shoes.

The paper publishes only those accounts of at least $5,000.