APACHE JUNCTION, AZ (AZFamily) — Kerry Morgan, a teacher from Apache Junction, is house-hunting for her forever home in Texas. A new grandbaby is on the way, and she wants to be closer to family. “Now, with the credit hit, I’m probably postponed a few more months,” Morgan said.
To understand that credit hit, we have to go back a few months to January. Morgan went to the emergency room. On her way to the hospital, she was told her bill would be more than $700. “I said, ‘Well, I don’t have that. Can I be on a payment plan?’ They said, ‘Sure. Let me take a look,‘” she recalled. “They came back with $30 a month and I said, ‘OK, perfect,’ and they said, ‘You should get an email.‘”
A couple of days later, Morgan got an alert. “I got a hit on my credit saying somebody did a hard look at my credit, and of course I was freaking out, like what is going on?” she said. “Come to find out, it was Banner (Health), hit my credit and signed me up for a credit card to put the payments on.”
Then, a credit card showed up in the mail. Morgan says she never asked for it and never signed anything. “Not a thing,” she said. “I’m infuriated.”
On its website, Banner Health touts its relationship with a “vendor” that offers credit, which can be used at “participating Banner Health locations.”
“We are starting to see [medical credit cards] marketed in more and more health care settings,” said Patricia Kelmar, the health care director for the Arizona PIRG Education Fund. “Oftentimes they have a zero-interest introductory rate, is what they call it, but the interest is significantly higher than what you’d see on a regular credit card, and if you miss a payment or don’t pay it off, the full balance, in a certain amount of time, the interest is retroactive.”
There’s another potential problem, according to Kelmar, if you use a medical credit card. “Now, you owe the money to a bank, not to the provider. The provider’s been fully paid. If you find out that you were misbilled, now, the argument is not with your provider anymore. You’ve lost that ability to fix that error,” Kelmar cautioned.
Like Morgan, a 2023 report by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau shows “patients report being signed up without their consent or knowledge.”
“Our health care professionals should not be marketing financial products to us in the health care setting,” Kelmar said. “It’s just a bad idea.”
Morgan says in her case, that unwanted and entirely unexpected credit card dinged her credit score by 16 points. “I was devastated, and the more I called trying to talk to someone, ‘Hey, you can’t do this. This is illegal,’ I heard from billing agents this happens every day,” she said.
When On Your Side asked if this is a known issue affecting more people than Morgan, a spokesperson for Banner Health emailed a statement saying, “Banner Health takes these concerns seriously. As a matter of policy, we do not discuss patient matters publicly.”
According to Morgan, Banner Health contacted her after On Your Side reached out. She says the hospital wiped out an $814 bill and discounted another bill by 50%. Curae, the company that issued the card, told On Your Side that the company will also reach out to the credit bureaus to reverse the hard inquiry on Morgan’s credit.
Now, the house hunt is back on track. “Thank you for all that you did to help me and the situation!” Morgan said.
If you are facing a medical bill you can’t pay in full, there are three things you need to know. First, you should be able to set up a payment plan directly through the health care provider. Second, ask for everything in writing so there are no surprises. Third, ask for time to consider your options before you agree to anything.
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