The agreement resulted from a lawsuit against Jackson by the collection agency, International Portfolio of West Conshohocken, Pa., alleging Jackson had reneged on a 2006 contract under which the agency paid Jackson $5.7 million to collect $1.8 billion in uncollected billings from 1998-2005.
According to the Herald, at one point Jackson asked International Portfolio to stop collections to determine if patients really owed the money and Jackson sent many patients a letter “apologizing for IPI’s collection efforts and informing the patient that he/she had a zero balance.”
The six-hospital, public system lost $11.4 million in Medicaid income from April-July and now faces a deficit of about $90 million this year.
Jackson Health System’s dealings with IPI are an “example of mismanagement on the part of Jackson,” said Sal Barbera, a former hospital administrator who teaches at Florida International University. “I can only hope the taxpayers of Miami-Dade County are not paying for this due to the incompetence of Jackson.”
Read Miami Herald report on Jackson Health System.
Learn more about Jackson Health System.
–Board of Miami’s Jackson Health System Approves Negative Budget for Next Year
-Miami’s Jackson Health Gains $1.7M in April, Annual Losses Still Expected
–County Questions Miami’s Jackson Health System’s Deficit Projections
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