Suits send hospitals down tobacco road.

• Author: Murray, Arthur O.
• Position: TAR HEEL TATTLER

Hospital administrators concede their billing system is sick. But they don't think the way to treat it is by a trial lawyer administering the legal equivalent of an eyes-wide-open colonoscopy. Gary Jackson has sued Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, NorthEast Medical Center in Concord and Rowan Memorial Hospital in Salisbury on behalf of uninsured patients whom he contends were overcharged.

And the Charlotte lawyer says more lawsuits could be on the way. His cases follow a national attack on hospital billing launched by Mississippi lawyer Richard Scruggs, who initiated cases that led to the master tobacco settlement, in which cigarette makers agreed to reimburse states billions of dollars for years of Medicaid and Medicare costs associated with smoking. In the past year, he has filed about 40 hospital lawsuits in 20 states, contending that their billing systems are unfair.

Jackson, who is not affiliated with Scruggs, is filing similar actions, usually involving emergency care for uninsured patients. The suits contend patients are prevented from negotiating payments and denied pricing information. "If Blue Cross is getting charged $3,000 for an appendectomy, Medicare $4,000, and uninsured patients are being billed $20,000, that's not reasonable."

Don Dalton, spokesman for the North...