Colorado
Colorado journalists show power of collaboration in UCHealth debt collection exposé
University of Colorado Hospital. Photo by Jeffrey Beall (CC BY-SA 3.0)
In June, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed into law HB24-1380, Regulation of Debt-Related Services. The law marked a milestone in a five-year investigation by a group of reporters into the debt-collection practices of the University of Colorado Health System (UCHealth).
Starting in 2019, journalists from five news outlets collected data on the number of lawsuits UCHealth brought against patients who had unpaid medical bills, according to reporting from Chris Vanderveen, the director of special projects for television station 9News, and John Ingold, a health reporter and cofounder of the nonprofit news outlet, The Colorado Sun.
Dubbed “Diagnosis: Debt Colorado,” the reporting project stems from a partnership led by the Colorado News Collaborative (COLab) and KFF Health News and included contributions from The Colorado Sun, 9News, Colorado Newsline and The Sentinel. In a series stemming from KFF Health News’ reporting on medical debt in the United States, the reporters explored the causes, scale and effects of medical debt on Colorado’s residents.
UCHealth is the state’s largest hospital system, collecting more than $6 billion in patient care revenue annually, Ingold and Vanderveen reported on Feb. 19, “UCHealth sues thousands of patients every year. But you won’t find its name on the lawsuits.”
In its mission statement, UCHealth says, “We improve lives,” the reporters noted. But from 2019 through 2023, the health system and its debt collectors filed 15,710 lawsuits, UCHealth revealed in response to questions from Ingold and Vanderveen, the two reporters wrote in that Feb. 19 article. That’s an average of 3,142 lawsuits per year, or more than eight per day, they noted. Yet almost none of the lawsuits were filed in UCHealth’s name, they added.
Veiled legal actions
In a broadcast on June 27, Vanderveen summarized the reporters’ findings. “As Colorado’s largest and most prominent medical provider insisted it was ‘not hiding anything,’ an exhaustive investigation discovered UCHealth, for years, used what amounted to a loophole in the state’s court system to keep private its aggressive bill collection practices,” Vanderveen wrote.
While journalists often cover hospitals’ confrontational billing and collection tactics, the investigative work of Vanderveen, Ingold and other journalists in this collaboration is significant because it shows how health reporters can uncover lawsuits when a hospital or health system conceals its legal actions against patients.
For their work, the collaborative efforts were particularly useful as were more traditional reporting strategies: soliciting patients’ hospital bills over multiple years, visiting courthouses when debt-collection cases were heard, and gathering the names of defendants and lawyers in those cases.
This spring, the investigation prompted the Colorado General Assembly to pass HB24-1380 to close a loophole that allowed UCHealth to sue thousands of patients under another business’ name, Vanderveen reported. Starting this fall, the law will force hospital systems to sue patients under their own names on debts the systems still own.
After the legislature passed HB24-1380, state Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis, praised the journalists’ work. “I really do think we owe you a little bit of thanks — maybe a lot of thanks and gratitude — for sure, because it pointed us in the right direction,” said Jaquez Lewis, a sponsor of the bill.
How the project unfolded
Early in 2020, UCHealth ended its years-long practice of suing patients under its own name, a change that was not disclosed to the state legislature or the public, Vanderveen reported. “The decision allowed UCHealth to continue to sue patients — roughly eight per day for years — with virtually no way to track its legal efforts,” the TV station explained. By allowing two of its third-party debt collectors to use their names as plaintiffs, “UCHealth turned a once-transparent process into a confusing and opaque mess for many of its patients,” the news station added.
When journalists asked about the issue, UCHealth’s administrators said the health system had sued more than 15,000 patients in five years, becoming one of the most aggressive litigants in Colorado, 9News explained.
Soliciting data from patients’ bills
Years before collaborating with other journalists to report on medical debt, Vanderveen asked 9News’ viewers to send in their medical bills. “Sometime between 2016 and 2018, we started a bill-solicitation program called, ‘Show Us Your Bills,’ and we got a lot of submissions,” he said in a phone interview. From those bills, Vanderveen built a database showing how often each hospital filed lawsuits, including the most aggressive litigants.
In 2020, COVID-19 forced all health care journalists to postpone their regular work, but later that year, Vanderveen became curious about how many hospitals filed debt-collection suits during the pandemic. His data showed a sudden drop in lawsuits from UCHealth.
Also in 2020, two Kaiser Health News journalists — senior correspondent Jay Hancock and data editor Elizabeth Lucas — were Pulitzer Prize finalists for reporting in 2019 on the predatory billing practices of the University of Virginia Health System. In an eight-part series, Hancock and Lucas exposed how UVA “relentlessly squeezed low-income patients — many into bankruptcy — forcing the nonprofit, state-run hospital to change its tactics,” the Pulitzer prize committee wrote, as AHCJ reported in a tip sheet published that same year.
Did UVA’s experience prompt UCHealth to change its tactics? Vanderveen wondered. “On the surface, it appeared as if UCHealth had a change of heart because no more lawsuits were filed under UCHealth’s name,” he explained. “It went from about hundreds per quarter to like two or three per quarter.” About that same time, he heard about Credit Service Co., a debt collector in Colorado Springs, that was a party to some UCHealth lawsuits against patients, he said. [See image from 9News.]
A trove of data in court filings
As Vanderveen’s data showed, UCHealth never stopped suing patients in early 2020. While it didn’t do so in a publicly traceable way, he could still find cases by searching court records for Credit Service Co. as a plaintiff, he said.
Visiting the courthouse was also useful, Ingold added. “Going to court is something I would highly recommend, because your local jurisdiction is probably hearing many debt-collection cases on the same days,” he said. “Plus, the lawyers who handle those cases are all the same people.” These courts had long dockets of cases that debt collectors filed, he noted.
Inside Colorado’s courts, the reporters found defendants waiting to respond to debt-collection summonses. “Chris [Vanderveen] would walk up and down a row of people, and ask, ‘Who’s here for a UCHealth case,’ and ‘Who’s being sued by the Credit Service Company?” Ingold said. Several defendants raised their hands, he noted. At the same time, Ingold found people named in suits that other health care entities brought, leading to more stories.
In addition, the reporters called legal services groups, consumer assistance programs, law school clinics and any other organization helping consumers, especially those with low income, Ingold said. They would have at least some insight into who is suing over medical debt.
Another reporting strategy is to seek defendants who filed answers to complaints, meaning the case may go to a hearing or trial, Ingold advised. In those case files, reporters may find creditors’ names, he said. Also, defendants who challenge these cases may want to talk to reporters, he added.
The value of collaboration
One of the most important lessons learned was the teamwork that came from the collaborative nature of the project. At COLab, journalists no longer compete as they once did to be the first to break stories. Instead, COLab journalists from different newsrooms work on projects together to serve the public good, Ingold explained.
“What we produce for the news collaborative can be distributed to pretty much any newsroom in Colorado that wants it,” he added said. “My story about the lawsuits ran on our site, at www.ColoradoSun.com, and it ran on the websites of the other news collaborators. Also, it ended up in The Denver Post and a number of other places around the state.”
COLab makes efficient use of the limited staff left behind in many newsrooms when fewer news outlets can devote multiple staff to any one project, he commented. “Also, we can help all the participating newsrooms by providing content everybody can use,” he added.
In addition to working with multiple newsrooms in Colorado, COLab also worked with Noam N. Levey, a senior correspondent at KFF Health News, who has led KFF’s award-winning project, Diagnosis: Debt.
Levey introduced the Colorado reporters to the staff at the Urban Institute who have researched how medical debt and collections affect immigrants and people of color, said Tina Griego, COLab’s managing editor. Data from the Urban Institute led to this story, “Medical Debt Affects Much of America, but Colorado Immigrants Are Hit Especially Hard,” by Rae Ellen Bichell and Lindsey Toomer, of Colorado Newsline, Griego explained. Bichell is a Colorado correspondent for KFF Health News and Toomer covers politics and social justice for Colorado Newsline, which is part of the States Newsroom, a nonprofit covering state capitals.
Resources
- “UCHealth sues thousands of patients every year but doesn’t use its own name to do it,” Colorado Sun and 9News, Feb. 16, 2024.
- “Colorado hospital giant’s lawsuits fill county courtrooms with defendants and confusion,” 9News, March 1, 2024.
- “Medical Debt Affects Much of America, but Colorado Immigrants Are Hit Especially Hard,” April 3, 2024.
- “Hospitals suing patients over unpaid bills would have to put their names on lawsuits under new Colorado measure,” Colorado Sun, April 12, 2024.
- “Loophole allowed UCHealth to sue thousands of patients under another business’ name,” 9News, June 27, 2024.
Colorado
New affordable housing communities in Colorado aim to serve families with the greatest need
LONGMONT, Colo. — For Skye Beck and her husband, the decision to uproot their family of five from Nebraska and relocate to Colorado for a new job wasn’t easy — especially when it came to the cost of living.
“It was looking like it maybe was not going to be an affordable option for us to come out here,” she said. “We did find one eventually, but it was still just the two-bedroom apartment, and that was just a little tight for us for the year.”
After a year of cramped living, the Beck family moved into a much more spacious apartment at Ascent at Hover Crossing in Longmont. The newest affordable housing development in Boulder County, which officially opened its doors on Tuesday, includes four-bedroom units — a rarity in affordable housing.
“I think they only have six of those [units],” said Beck. “To have that much space for the five of us is a blessing.”
Katie Pung, housing development project manager for the City of Longmont, said the larger units were a deliberate priority.
“Having those larger units for families really came together in a way that we feel like is going to be meaningful for Longmont families,” Pung said.
The mixed-income apartments are available for a variety of incomes, with units ranging from 30% to 80% of the Area Median Income (AMI) — about $31,650 to $84,400 for a one-person household.
The development also includes an early childhood education (ECE) center on site, giving families an affordable childcare option.
OUR Center, a longtime local nonprofit specializing in subsidized early education for low-income families, will operate the center. The facility is set to open later this year, with availability for both residents and the broader Longmont community.
It reflects a growing statewide push to incorporate childcare into housing projects through state funding and technical assistance for developers.
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A similar effort is underway in Denver’s Berkeley neighborhood, where the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless is partnering with the Denver Housing Authority to develop Charity’s House, a family housing development with 135 new units — also with an on-site child care center.
At least 40% of the units will be reserved for families earning 30% of the Area Median Income (AMI) — currently $37,850 for a family of three and $42,050 for a family of four in Denver. All units will be income-restricted to those at or below 60% AMI.
Cathy Alderman, chief communications and public policy officer for the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, said land partnerships help reduce both cost and construction time.
“If we can enter into a partnership with another organization that owns land, and we can build on that, that cuts our cost and time down considerably,” Alderman said.
The DHA Delivers for Denver (D3) bond program, a partnership between DHA and the City of Denver, has funded 11 property acquisitions since its inception in 2019, according to Denver Housing Authority Chief Real Estate Officer Erin Clark.
“It is public partnerships like that and public-private partnerships that, even us, working with a nonprofit here, that are what deliver more housing across the community,” said Clark. “It’s just people thinking outside of the box and leveraging resources and saying, ‘What do you do best, and what do we do best, and how can we work together to make all this happen?’”
Construction is slated to begin in late 2027.
Denver7 has heard from multiple experts through the years about the lack of affordable housing options for families and seniors.
Years-long waitlists and housing lottery odds often make it tougher. More than 15,000 children and youth are currently experiencing homelessness in Denver.
Colorado has been making significant housing investments since the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to more affordable housing developments across the state. But Alderman said there is still more work to be done.
“My biggest concern is that not all of that housing is being targeted for those households in the greatest need,” Alderman said.
Longtime Longmont resident Karen Howerton remembers a time when rents hovered in the $600 range.
“When I came back to Longmont six years ago, I was surprised at how much inflation had happened here and how big the town had grown,” she said.
The last affordable housing development she lived in didn’t quite fit all her needs.
Now, she joins the Becks as one of the first tenants at Ascent at Hover Crossing.
“What I wanted to come over here for was a washer and dryer — I didn’t have that at my other place — and the little balcony, you know,” she said. “I’ve met a few of the neighbors already, and I can’t say enough about it. It’s just a great place to be, for sure.”
Howerton and Beck say the little comforts go a long way toward making a place feel like home.
“I mean, everyone deserves to have a space and be able to afford it without worrying about all the other parts of life,” Beck said. “I feel like here we’re able to finally rest a bit and able to enjoy life, but it shouldn’t be limited to just a waitlist.”
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Snow started Monday night in Colorado’s mountains and will continue throughout the week, likely making its way into the Denver area on Friday, according to the National Weather Service.
Colorado’s mountain roads, including Interstate 70 at the Eisenhower-Johnson Tunnel and Berthoud Pass, were already snow-covered Tuesday morning, according to the weather service.
“With more snow to come throughout the day, a Winter Weather Advisory was issued for the Front Range Mountains,” forecasters said.
That advisory will be in effect until 8 p.m. Tuesday for parts of Jackson, Larimer, Boulder, Grand, Gilpin, Clear Creek, Summit and Park counties, including Rocky Mountain National Park. Additional snow accumulations between 6 and 14 inches are possible on Tuesday, forecasters said in the alert.
As of Tuesday, the weather service’s snow forecasts included:
- 2 inches on I-70’s Vail Pass, with up to 3 inches possible
- 3 inches in Winter Park, with up to 4 inches possible
- 4 inches in Eldora and on U.S. 6’s Loveland Pass, with up to 5 inches possible
- 4 inches on U.S. 40’s Berthoud Pass near Winter Park, with up to 7 inches possible
- 5 inches at Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park, with up to 7 inches possible
- 6 inches on U.S. 34’s Milner Pass in RMNP, with up to 8 inches possible
- 7 inches on Colorado 14’s Cameron Pass near Fort Collins, with up to 8 inches possible
- 9 inches on Mount Zirkel, the highest summit of Colorado’s Park Range of the Rocky Mountains, with up to 11 inches possible
“Travel could be very difficult,” weather service forecasters stated in the winter weather advisory. “The hazardous conditions will impact the Tuesday morning and evening commutes.”
Snow is expected to pause in the mountains Wednesday and resume Thursday before wrapping up early Saturday morning, according to hourly forecasts from the weather service.
In the Denver area, snow is most likely between 5 a.m. and 4 p.m. on Friday, the hourly forecasts show. Rain is also forecast for the metro area during that time, so it’s unknown how much snow will stick.
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In NHL.com’s Q&A feature called “Sitting Down with …” we talk to key figures in the game, gaining insight into their lives on and off the ice. This week, we feature Kim Weiss, assistant coach of the Colorado Eagles, the Colorado Avalanche’s American Hockey League affiliate. Weiss was named assistant for the Eagles on Jan. 16, joining Seattle Kraken assistant Jessica Campbell as the only women in the NHL or AHL to be a full-time assistant coach.
Kim Weiss doesn’t think about the history she’s made that often.
The 36-year-old is too busy with her duties that come with being the Colorado Eagles’ assistant coach, including breaking down 5-on-5 video — she was the team’s video coach prior to her promotion — presenting it to the team, pushing pucks and running practice drills.
“When the title change happened and the promotion happened, I left the office of the general manager (Kevin McDonald), and I got back to work,” Weiss told NHL.com. “In the moment you’re not really thinking about that kind of stuff, but obviously it’s an honor.
“I’m especially grateful just because of my background. I didn’t play on a national team, I didn’t grow up in Minnesota or any kind of a hockey hotbed. So to get at this level and to have this legacy, for lack of a better word, from the place I’m from, a kid from Maryland that played Division III (hockey at Trinity College), it makes me even more proud to show people that you can get somewhere no matter where you start from. Then you add in being a female and all of that, I’m really proud of my journey and I’m proud of all the people who helped me along the way to get here.”
It’s been quite a ride for Weiss with the Eagles, who are second in the AHL Pacific Division. Last week, Weiss talked to NHL.com about her new duties, working with the Avalanche and more women in hockey.
So what was it like the day McDonald called you into the office to give you the news of your promotion?
“Honestly, it’s an affirmation of the work you put in. That’s what the GM said to me. Last season I had a different head coach (Aaron Schneekloth) and we had a different assistant (Dan Hinote) that both moved onto the NHL, and they both spoke highly of me to our GM in the summer and to our new head coach (Mark Letestu). Getting to know Mark this year and working for him, everything that he had heard of me got confirmed through the first few months of the year.
“I don’t exactly know how the process went about to change the title, but I think he went to Kevin, and I know Kevin said this to me, this line of, ‘You’re doing all the work that the assistant does, so why aren’t we calling you one?’ I’m already on the ice with the team and I run skill skates and scratch skates and present (video). I’m doing everything the assistant coach does; I just had a different title. So I really appreciate them just giving me the opportunity to kind of advance my career and keep doing what I love to do, which is coach hockey.”
Letestu also had you run one of the practices earlier in the season. How did that come about?
“Every assistant got (that chance). The big thing coming in was, he had been an assistant coach before and he wanted to make sure we all had a voice and a say, and we weren’t just coming onto the ice for practice like, ‘Oh, here we go. Push some pucks. Put my track suit on for 20 minutes, push some pucks and jump off.’ He wanted to make sure we had the platform in front of the players.
“It started with our longest-tenured assistant coach, Tim Branham. It was nothing new or scary for any of us, but just a different dynamic. Not every staff allows their assistants to take full responsibility of a full practice. Then Derek (Army) took it and then the next week I took one.”
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