This is the fourth full year I’ve been tracking these numbers – I captured part of the year in 2012 – and the third year that I’ve captured filings by hospital. 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.
In the first three years, the overall total was $67,965,862 – a staggering amount of money for a relatively small metropolitan area that includes the city of Syracuse and her suburbs, the towns and villages of Onondaga County, and to a lesser extent, some of the even smaller neighboring towns and villages. As I reported in the 2015 recap, we turned sharply down last year – some $7M – and the hope is that we will continue to see progress in the overall total. Of course, a better sign of health would be an increase in the number of satisfied judgments; people’s ability to pay off their debt (or their willingness, as the case may be) is something else I’m hoping to see this year.
This week, there were
- eleven new judgments, totaling $20,289;
- one satisfied judgment, for $41,969;
- and two bankruptcies, totaling $53,154.
By hospital:
- Crouse had nine, for $94,667;
- St Joe's had two, for $19,411; and
- SUNY Upstate had two,including the $41K repayment, for a net credit of $20,768
A local radiology group and a North Country medical center accounted for the remaining $38,074.
The paper only publishes filings of $5,000 or more.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts!