California sues Prime Healthcare over balance-billing practice

By Daniel Costello, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer July 2, 2008 The hospital operator put HMO patients 'in the middle of billing disputes,' a regulator says. California regulators have moved to stop one of the state's biggest hospital operators from billing privately insured patients for unpaid medical services received at its facilities. The Department of Managed Health Care, in a lawsuit filed Friday in Orange County Superior Court, is seeking to bar Prime Healthcare Services Inc. of Victorville from billing insured patients for unpaid medical bills that the hospital chain contends it is owed from insurers and is seeking from patients as a last resort.