Puget Sound Physicians, the group that provides emergency medicine at Overlake Hospital in Bellevue, will refund more than 1,300 Washington patients a total of $410,000 under a settlement Attorney General Nick Brown announced on September 29. The average refund is nearly $300, interest included, and the checks are due by mail within 120 days. The money goes to patients who qualified for charity care and were never repaid for what they had already paid. The announcement mentions no claim form, so the open questions are who is on the list and what happens if a check does not arrive.
What Puget Sound Physicians did not refund
The attorney general’s investigation found that the practice repeatedly failed to refund a subset of patients who qualified for charity care. The failures covered patients treated at Overlake over more than five years, through March of this year. The attorney general’s office filed an assurance of discontinuance in King County Superior Court, a binding agreement that resolves its concerns under the Consumer Protection Act about unfair or deceptive acts. Brown said in the release that “when providers fail to follow the law, our consumer protection team stands up for Washington patients.”
Patients who paid out of pocket for emergency care at Overlake and were later approved for charity care are the group the refunds are aimed at. Under the attorney general’s announcement, the practice must mail a check to each patient’s most current address, so a patient who has moved since an Overlake visit has a reason to make sure the hospital and the practice hold a current address. The release says the actual amount depends on what each person paid and what care was received…