Government
Panel rules against consolidating suits over hospital charges
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Nov. 8, 2004
The U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation Oct. 20 ruled that federal lawsuits accusing nonprofit hospitals of unfairly overcharging uninsured patients will not be consolidated into one lawsuit. The ruling pleased the American Hospital Assn., which saw consolidation as a legal maneuver to benefit trial lawyers at the expense of hundreds of local hospitals.
"The panel's decision means that we can now move to the merits of the case, and hopefully this decision will lead to a speedy and fair conclusion of the cases," the AHA said in a statement. The AHA is named as a defendant in many of the lawsuits that have been filed against hospitals nationwide.
Lawyers suing the hospitals on behalf of uninsured patients said they wanted the cases consolidated to centralize and streamline the court process instead of trying the cases in different courts around the country.
"Regardless of the procedural path or the location of the individual venues, we are determined to require the defendant nonprofit hospital systems and hospitals to fulfill their legal obligation to stop their discriminatory pricing against the uninsured," the lawyers said in a statement.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2004/11/08/gvbf1108.htm.
