Less than a week after NBC News detailed how the hospital system Atrium Health of North Carolina aggressively pursued former patients’ medical debts, placing liens on their homes to collect on hospital bills, the nonprofit company announced it would cancel those obligations and forgive the unpaid debts associated with them.
” Americans owe some $220 billion in medical debt, according to KFF, a nonprofit health policy research, polling and news organization. The top three states for medical debt are South Dakota, where 18% of the population is affected, followed by Mississippi at 15% and Belk’s home state of North Carolina at 13%, KFF says.