Many Hospitals Serving Needy Scroogish With Charity Care

Many Hospitals Serving Needy Scroogish With Charity Care
NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 26: Paramedics and EMTs evacuate a patient from NYU Langone Medical Center after the hosptial was ordered to to discharge or move about 400 patients to other hospitals August 26, 2011 in New York City. The hospital began evacuating patients Friday afternoon in accordance with a direct order from the NYC Office of Emergency Management and the NYS Department of Health in anticipation of Hurricane Irene. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 26: Paramedics and EMTs evacuate a patient from NYU Langone Medical Center after the hosptial was ordered to to discharge or move about 400 patients to other hospitals August 26, 2011 in New York City. The hospital began evacuating patients Friday afternoon in accordance with a direct order from the NYC Office of Emergency Management and the NYS Department of Health in anticipation of Hurricane Irene. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

New Yorkers who get sick during the holiday season but don’t have the money to pay for a doctor may want to tread cautiously at some city hospitals.

Earlier this year, the Community Service Society found that many city hospitals are Scroogish when it comes to charity care — health services paid for out of a special state fund created to aid poor patients. Instead, they put many of those patients through debt collections, and only when those efforts fail do they collect funds from the pool, which is financed largely through surcharges on hospital care.

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