Businessweek has been doing a very good job covering one of the most important--and underreported--stories in contemporary health care--"the transformation of medical bills into consumer debt." It would not be surprising to me to find that many hospitals are taking the next logical step here into "consumer-directed health care" and scoring "customers" according to their ability to pay. Therefore I'm happy to post this request for more information on the topic from reporter Robert Berner:

I am doing research about the growing trend among hospitals of using medical credit scoring. Many hospitals are using scoring at the point of intake to gage self-pay patients and underinsured patients' ability and willingness to pay their bills. I am exploring how scoring may be impacting care in emergency rooms, in hospital admissions, in doctor run clinics and specialty hospitals, etc. If you have insight on this topic or examples, I would like to talk to you. Please email me at robert_berner@businessweek.com or call me directly at 312-233-7944.

If you care about issues like this, please pass it on to doctors or administrators you know!