As medical costs grow, creditors get in the game

Hospitals in the Tampa Bay, FL, area are approaching any bill-paying changes cautiously for fear of ending up with the kind of public relations disaster that hit Hot Spring County Medical Center in Arkansas. To increase its cash flow, Hot Spring sold patient debt to a private finance company, CompleteCare, which tacked on interest and billed the patient. As a result, an uninsured patient who could only afford $100 a month to the hospital was stuck with a bill more than four times that size from CompleteCare.