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Mining patients personal financial information
A growing number of hospitals in the US are mining patients personal financial information to figure out how likely they are to pay their bills. Mining patient clinical data for research we are familiar with, but this one seems new. Hospitals say this practice helps them identify which patients to pursue actively for payment because they can afford to pay. They say it also allows them to figure out more quickly which patients are eligible for charity care or assistance programs, and argue that these credit checks can can help them minimize losses. According to the American Hospital Association, in 2006 nearly 5000 community hospitals provided uncompensated care costing $ 31.2 billion, the vast majority of it charity care or unpaid hospital bills.


Tenet Healthcare, Fair Isaac Corp, and a venture capital firm have contributed $ 10 million each to a start up called Healthcare Analytics (now rechristened Connance) that is assembling bill collection data from hospitals to develop methods for predicting patients' payment habits. While there is some concern that this practice creates the potential for hospitals to misuse the information by denying or cutting back on patients' care if they can't pay, it does appear that hospitals have the right to check credit reports without specific permission before care is delivered. Equifax and Experian seem to have developed a separate credit score specific to healthcare, and SearchAmerica mines the credit bureaus for data on behalf of its hospital clients.