Major Fla. hospital chain billed surprise emergency room ‘surcharges,’ lawsuit claims
One of the largest for-profit hospital chains in Florida is accused of charging patients who received care in its affiliated emergency rooms undisclosed “surcharge” fees that can total thousands of dollars, according to a lawsuit claiming the billing practice is “unfair, deceptive and unlawful.”
The lawsuit was filed earlier this year in the Southern District of Florida against HCA Healthcare Inc., which does business as HCA Florida in hospitals across the state. It names three HCA Florida affiliate hospitals — Poinciana Medical Center, Fort Walton Beach Medical Center and Palms West Hospital — as defendants, and lists three lead plaintiffs who say they received emergency treatment at the hospitals, only to be surprised with the surcharge fees after they were discharged.
The proposed class action seeks to represent anyone financially responsible for patients who received emergency room fees at all HCA-affiliated emergency rooms in Florida in the last four years. The suit did not name HCA affiliates in Miami-Dade County, such as Mercy Hospital, Kendall Regional Medical Center and Aventura Hospital and Medical Center.
One of the plaintiffs is Nathan Haviland, a Missouri resident who went to the emergency room in October 2016 at Poinciana Medical Center in Kissimmee and was later billed for $23,865, which included a surcharge of nearly $4,000, according to the lawsuit. Haviland and the other two plaintiffs claim the surcharges were not noted in the admission contracts, nor were they posted on signs near the emergency room or verbally communicated to the patients.
The surcharges are billed to patients “simply for presenting and being seen at one of defendants’ emergency rooms,” the lawsuit claims.
“The high cost of medical services is a matter of great public concern, and emergency care patients have a right to be informed of a surcharge before it is incurred,” the lawsuit said.
A spokeswoman for HCA Healthcare said the plaintiffs filed similar claims in the Middle District of Florida that were dismissed.
“We believe we have appropriately disclosed our charges and complied with the law,” the spokeswoman said.
In its motion to dismiss filed in June, HCA Healthcare argued that the lawsuit “improperly lumps together” the individual hospitals accused of deceptive billing practices with its regional divisions in eastern and northern Florida.
“There is simply no allegation that the divisions did anything, other than perhaps being affiliates of HCA Healthcare,” the motion to dismiss said, adding that HCA was not a party to the contracts for admission at the emergency rooms.
The motion to dismiss is pending a hearing, currently scheduled for next month in Fort Lauderdale.
Jared Lee of Jackson Lee PA, a consumer protection law firm based out of Seminole County, is representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. Lee declined to comment.
The proposed class action claims that HCA Florida uses a formula or algorithm to determine the level of surcharge fee on a scale of one to five, “with the level of the charge being based on an internally developed, undisclosed formula known exclusively to the defendants.”
In addition to Haviland, the lawsuit lists two other plaintiffs: Timothy Shaw of Palm Beach County and Keith Oleary of Okaloosa County.
Shaw claims he received a surcharge of $1,642 on a $5,437 bill after receiving treatment at the emergency department of Palms West Hospital in Loxahatchee in January of this year, while Olearly claims he received an unspecified surcharge on a $6,617 bill for his minor dependent, who received emergency treatment at the Fort Walton Beach Medical Center in December 2017.
The lawsuit does not detail what type of medical treatment the plaintiffs received, but argues that patients would choose to seek less costly treatment at other hospitals if they had been made aware of surcharge fees before they were billed.
“The failure to disclose the surcharge is particularly egregious in light of the fact that defendants represent themselves as providing care and help to patients in the community,” the lawsuit said.
This story was originally published December 3, 2019 at 6:00 AM.
