Name: Minnesota legislators push to end state collection of tax refunds for private hospital debt
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Minnesota legislators push to end state collection of tax refunds for private hospital debt

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More from the HomepageLawmakers want to halt capture of tax refunds from indebted patients.&nbsp;By Star TribunemoreCopy shortlink:Minnesota would stop col­lect­ing med­i­cal debt for pri­vate hos­pi­tals, un­der pro­po­sals at the Capitol this ses­sion.The state has used its revenue re­cap­ture program to inter­cept cer­tain pay­ments to resi­dents, in­clud­ing state in­come tax or prop­er­ty tax re­funds, and di­vert the dol­lars to med­i­cal bills. A in re­cent years to help large pri­vate nonprofit hos­pi­tals — a role some legis­la­tors say it should stop play­ing."The i­de­a of HealthPartners using the state as a col­lec­tion a­gen­cy for peo­ple of mod­est and low means just seems like a to­tal­ly wrong thing," said Sen. Jim Abeler, R-Anoka, who is spon­sor­ing one of the meas­ures that would end the revenue re­cap­ture proc­ess for cer­tain hos­pi­tals.The Department of Revenue's re­cap­ture program was ex­pand­ed more than two de­cades ago to help hos­pi­tals that were facing a fi­nan­cial bur­den from pro­vid­ing care to un­in­sured and under­insured pa­tients. How­ever, peo­ple with would not have their tax re­funds giv­en to a hos­pi­tal.Dur­ing a com­mit­tee hear­ing earli­er this month, James Mc­Clean with Re­gions Hospital and HealthPartners out­lined a list of steps they take be­fore using revenue re­cap­ture, from of­fer­ing fi­nan­cial as­sist­ance while the pa­tient is in the hos­pi­tal to mail­ing at least four state­ments af­ter some­one is dis­charged and re­peat­ed­ly call­ing to try to set up a pay­ment plan. The re­cap­ture program also in­cludes an ap­peals proc­ess, he said."We be­lieve we have put many safe­guards in place to en­sure revenue re­cap­ture is used ap­pro­pri­ate­ly and will con­tin­ue to work to ad­dress those con­cerns," Mc­Clean said. He add­ed that los­ing the re­cap­ture op­tion with­out an­oth­er mech­a­nism to ad­dress un­com­pen­sat­ed care would be a ma­jor chal­lenge.Regions Hospital, St. Paul, Minn.But Rep. Liz Reyer, DFL-Eagan, said she read about the use of tax re­funds "with a cer­tain a­mount of dis­be­lief and a cer­tain a­mount of out­rage.""You put off get­ting your car fixed, you put off get­ting a roof, you put your kids' school clothes on cred­it cards and you fig­ure, 'OK, I'm going to have that tax re­turn.' And then you have med­i­cal debt take it away. I think it's fun­da­men­tal­ly wrong," Reyer said. "It's also a mis­use of the state's pow­er."Reyer has pro­posed two bills in the House to end the prac­tice. She hopes one of them will be in­clud­ed in the House Tax Committee's broad budg­et and pol­icy pack­age and will be passed this ses­sion.One bill would end the as­sist­ance only to pri­vate nonprofit hos­pi­tals that lease a build­ing from a coun­ty or city. Reyer said that in­cludes fa­cili­ties in the HealthPartners, Essentia Health and CentraCare sys­tems. The oth­er pro­pos­al would also stop the state from seizing dol­lars to help am­bu­lance serv­ice pro­vid­ers.The state program col­lect­ed $21.4 mil­lion for Re­gions Hospital, which HealthPartners owns, be­tween 2014 and 2019, a Star Tribune an­aly­sis of Revenue Department data found. Am­bu­lance ser­vices also got mil­lions dur­ing that time frame.Am­bu­lance ser­vices might need more sup­port than hos­pi­tals as they make the tran­si­tion away from using the revenue re­cap­ture program, Reyer said, but legis­la­tors are still work­ing through the de­tails.Al­li­na Health said in a state­ment Wednes­day that its em­er­gen­cy med­i­cal ser­vices pro­vide care for pa­tients, re­gard­less of their a­bil­i­ty to pay. "The revenue re­cap­ture program is used as a last re­sort af­ter work­ing ex­ten­sive­ly with our pa­tients to help them over­come any fi­nan­cial bar­ri­ers they are ex­peri­enc­ing," the health sys­tem said.Mean­while, or­gan­i­za­tions such as Health Policy Ad­vo­cates are push­ing legis­la­tors to make the change. John Kol­stad with the group said Min­ne­so­tans are hav­ing their tax re­funds tak­en with­out get­ting a chance to ar­gue their case in court and have a judge con­sider the full cir­cum­stances.Sen. Me­lis­sa Wiklund, DFL-Bloomington, said hos­pi­tals and am­bu­lance ser­vices do need to col­lect debts. But they can use pay­ment plans and oth­er meth­ods that do not de­sta­bi­lize some­one's fi­nan­ces, said Wiklund, who is spon­sor­ing one of the bills and push­ing for a hear­ing in the Tax Committee. "They have oth­er ways to de­vel­op col­lec­tion plans with peo­ple that don't lead to this same ab­rupt re­cap­ture," she said.Form­er staff writ­er Ma­ris­sa Evans con­tri­buted to this re­port.Jes­sie Van Berkel • 651-925-5044More from Star TribuneMore from Star TribuneMore from Star TribuneMore from Star TribuneMore from Star TribuneMore from Star TribuneMore from Star TribuneMore from Star TribuneMore From Star TribuneMore From Star TribuneMore From PoliticsTop StoriesMost Read© 2022 StarTribune. All rights reserved.

More from the HomepageLawmakers want to halt capture of tax refunds from indebted patients.&nbsp;By Star TribunemoreCopy shortlink:Minnesota would stop col­lect­ing med­i­cal debt for pri­vate hos­pi­tals, un­der pro­po­sals at the Capitol this ses­sion.The state has used its revenue re­cap­ture program to inter­cept cer­tain pay­ments to resi­dents, in­clud­ing state in­come tax or prop­er­ty tax re­funds, and di­vert the dol­lars to med­i­cal bills. A in re­cent years to help large pri­vate nonprofit hos­pi­tals — a role some legis­la­tors say it should stop play­ing."The i­de­a of...

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Jessie Van Berkel

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Minnesota legislators push to end state collection of tax refunds for private hospital debt

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