Many hospitals use aggressive tactics to collect medical debt. They garnish patients’ wages. They seize their tax refunds. But one wealthy nonprofit system is taking things a step further: withholding care from patients who have unpaid medical bills.
Serena Gragert, who worked as a scheduler at a local Allina clinic until 2021, in Minneapolis, Minn. on May 23, 2023.
Nonprofit hospitals like Allina get enormous tax breaks in exchange for providing care for the poorest people in their communities. But a New York Times investigation last year found that over the past several decades, nonprofits have fallen short of their charitable missions, with few consequences. Allina suspended its policy of cutting off patients in March 2020, at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, before reinstating it in April 2021.
In 2020, thanks to its nonprofit status, Allina avoided roughly $266 million in state, local and federal taxes, according to the Lown Institute, a think tank that studies health care. The financial success has paid dividends. Allina’s president earned $3.5 million in 2021, the most recent year for which data is available. The health system recently built a $12 million conference center.
Doctors and patients described being unable to complete medical forms that children needed to enroll in day care or show proof of vaccination for school. Because Allina is the dominant health system in some rural parts of Minnesota, getting kicked out can leave patients with few options. In a lawsuit filed last year in state court in Minnesota, Allina sued a couple, Jordan and JoLynda Anderson, for nearly $10,000 in unpaid medical bills.
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