Hospitals pressing patients to pay in advance

Hospitals increasingly are demanding upfront payment before treating patients to prevent unpaid bills. In Pennsylvania, debt-burdened hospitals want to stave off more than $1 billion of annual bad debt. They look for upfront payment for big-ticket items such as surgeries and MRIs. Bad debt could soar as people sign up for insurance plans that make patients responsible for a bigger portion of hospital bills, experts said. As a result, the money hospitals collect for services, aside from payments by insurers, depends on how much they can collect from individuals.