Hospitals do engage debt collectors to recover these uncollected monies which are public funds.

Everyone is doing their job. There is a system in place to catch these who take advantage of public funds.

Generally,  hospitals take the following approach to recover outstanding hospital bills.

Within 10 days after discharge, patients should receive their final hospital bills. Most patients would settle their bills upon receipt.

If a patient has not responded after one month, the hospital will send a reminder. A second reminder, if necessary, will be sent during the following month.

For a patient who expresses financial difficulty, the hospital would explore with him options for financial assistance where appropriate, or consider payment by installments.

For a small minority who do not respond after 2 reminders, the hospital would send a third reminder. If there is still no response, some hospitals may refer the case to a debt management agency to collect payment on their behalf.

A debt collector is engaged by the hospital only after all internal collection efforts have been exhausted.

Such agents are stringently selected and contractually bound to use legal and professional measures to collect debts.

 

 

Although $37 is a small amount to most people, however if a hospital got 1000 such cases, it will becomes $37’000.
It will not longer be a small amount.

Debt collector gets a certain % of the debt money because they were engage to do their job.

Hospital or any public infrastructure tend to operate at a profit if possible so as to reduce the money taken from public funds/taxes.
End of the day, it still tax payer money.

A debt is still a debt no matter what need to be done, we still need to recover it back.