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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCalif. sues doctor over billing tactics to collect fees from ER patients
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/17/local/la-me-southpas-doctor-20120818State suing doctor over billing tactics
Jeannette Martello's aggressive tactics to collect fees from emergency room patients including lawsuits and taking out liens on their homes prompt unprecedented court case by state officials.
August 17, 2012 | By Anna Gorman, Los Angeles Times
When Bill Buck accidentally cut off the tip of his finger at his Duarte cabinet workshop two years ago, he headed to Huntington Memorial Hospital's emergency room.
He assumed his insurance company would sort out the $12,630 bill from the plastic surgeon, Jeannette Martello.
But Martello wasn't satisfied with the $3,500 insurance reimbursement, so she returned the check and filed a lawsuit against Buck, his wife and his business for the full amount, according to the state attorney general's office. She also began a process to force the sale of Buck's home to collect the money, records show.
Martello's use of aggressive tactics to collect fees from emergency room patients like Buck including lawsuits, taking out liens on their homes and damaging their credit prompted an unprecedented court case by state health officials and a judge's order for Martello to cease the practices.
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Calif. sues doctor over billing tactics to collect fees from ER patients (Original Post)
jsr
Aug 2012
OP
A person who knowingly files a wrongful lien can be sued for slander of title.
AnotherMcIntosh
Aug 2012
#3
Sounds like someone who went into medicine for the money, not to help people.
GreenPartyVoter
Aug 2012
#2
CreekDog
(46,192 posts)1. She tried to put a lien on the home of a parent of an adult patient --so wrong
over the top.
if this is the way she practices medicine, she shouldn't be allowed to practice anymore.
you can't put a lien on someone's house based on a bill for someone else who doesn't own it.
AnotherMcIntosh
(11,064 posts)3. A person who knowingly files a wrongful lien can be sued for slander of title.
GreenPartyVoter
(72,378 posts)2. Sounds like someone who went into medicine for the money, not to help people.