Patients across the U.S. are challenging hospitals' high prices for care, several recent lawsuits have highlighted.
Most recently, patient George Cansler proposed a class-action lawsuit against Greenville, N.C.-based Vidant Health, alleging that the 1,477-bed system overbilled patients hundreds of thousands of dollars for common procedures like CT scans. The lawsuit also alleges that Vidant engaged in deceptive billing and debt collection practices to "extract undisclosed and unreasonably high prices from patients" and are able to charge the high prices because Vidant is the monopoly hospital system for much of eastern North Carolina.
In Connecticut, a group of patients is suing Hartford HealthCare, alleging that the large hospital system has amassed a monopoly of inpatient hospitals and abuses its market power to charge higher prices to insurers, employers and patients. In particular, the plaintiffs allege that the prices at Hartford HealthCare's facilities are routinely more than 20 percent higher than the nearest competitor and that prices for high-volume procedures are hundreds of dollars more than at nearby hospitals.
Another class-action lawsuit filed by patients in California alleges that Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health systematically overcharged health plans, resulting in higher insurance premiums for them. The lawsuit's class includes any fully insured patient across 38 California counties who paid premiums to one of five payers — Blue Shield of California, Anthem Blue Cross, Aetna, Health Net or UnitedHealthcare — since 2011.