Minnesota AG Bolsters Complaint Against Accretive

The Minnesota Attorney General’s office has prepared an amended complaint against Chicago-based Accretive Health, and although it contains no new counts, it expands upon earlier allegations that Accretive used high pressure tactics to collect medical fees and debts and that it failed to protect data of more than 400,000 patients of Minnesota hospitals.

Accretive Health has in the past denied all allegations and has yet to have its day in court.

In January Attorney General Lori Swanson brought a five-count lawsuit against Accretive Health, charging the company with failing to protect confidential patient data after an Accretive employee had a laptop stolen the previous July that contained unencrypted patient records from Fairview and North Memorial hospitals.

The complaint also charged the company with violations of state debt collection laws, although the complaint contained no specific examples. Those came in April when the attorney general’s office released a 6-volume “compliance review” report containing allegations that Fairview Health had contracted Accretive to manage its revenue cycle, and that Accretive had employed high-pressure debt collection tactics to increase point-of-service collections. Accretive denied the allegations.

Earlier this month, Minnesota Senator Al Franken conducted a field hearing to investigate the attorney general’s allegations.