Tuesday's Number: $1,869,826

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.  

As I did for much of last year, I will be 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 more than makes up for last week’s ‘poor showing’, if that’s the correct term to use; we recorded the highest totals ever for number of people listed and dollars.  This week, there were 62 people listed with new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $1,669,118.  

This week, there were eight listings for satisfied judgments totaling $88,708 to a hospital, doctor, or other medical provider.  That’s not including the one I mentioned last week, against a local hospital by a person’s estate; that judgment, for $164,256, has been satisfied.   

Finally, this week there were two health-care related bankruptcies listed, for a total of $112,000.  

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