TeamHealth's ER billing scrutinized at Nashville General

TeamHealth has sued 700 patients who were unable to pay for emergency room care they received at Nashville General Hospital this year, but the physician staffing firm said it has stopped the practice and is offering patients discounts, according to WPLN News.

Southeastern Emergency Physicians, a group owned by Knoxville, Tenn.-based Team Health, has run Nashville General's ER since 2016. Nashville General pays TeamHealth about $200,000 a month to provide care for indigent patients. But TeamHealth continued to bill uninsured patients and in some cases took patients to court over unpaid accounts.

Leaders of the board overseeing Nashville General said they didn't know TeamHealth was suing patients over unpaid balances. In 2019, TeamHealth sued 700 patients at Nashville General — as many patients as all other nearby hospitals and staffing firms combined, according to WPLN News. TeamHealth said it is no longer suing patients, at Nashville General and at other hospitals, and is implementing discount programs.

Frank Stevenson, who chairs the Nashville General board's finance committee, said even though the ER services are outsourced, the billing practices reflect on the hospital. 

"It's still under our umbrella. And so we have an expectation to make sure we're monitoring, covering, and looking into all of those things that are associated with this hospital," he told WPLN.

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