Tuesday's Number: $39,519

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 likely a patient 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 five new judgments to hospitals, doctors, or other medical providers totaling $43,603.
• There was one satisfied judgment, for $11,388.
• And there were one bankruptcy, for $7,304. 

By hospital, here’s the breakdown: 

• Crouse had four, totaling $5,894
• St. Joseph’s had one, for $7,304
• There were no filings for SUNY Upstate or Community (part of Upstate). 

Crouse’s total included a credit of $11,388 for the satisfied judgment; I subtract the repayments from both the overall totals and the individual hospital totals, under the likelihood that they’ve already been incorporated into the numbers at some point now.

There were two judgments this week that were unrelated to the four local hospitals, one for a nursing home/rehab center, and one for surgical practice, which account for the $26,321 difference between the overall total and the individual hospital totals.  

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