Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., sued more than 700 patients over unpaid bills during his more than two-decade career as a practicing OB-GYN in Kansas, and courts issued arrest warrants against 81 of those patients for missing related court dates, The New York Times reported Sept. 8, based on a review of Kansas court records.
About half of the lawsuits were filed under Mr. Marshall’s name and the rest under Heartland Regional OBGYN, the practice he solely owned from 1998 to 2012 and co-owned until 2019, according to the Times. The unpaid bills ranged from $101 to several thousand dollars. Mr. Marshall’s law firm routinely charged patients 18% annual interest and garnished their wages and bank accounts, the Times found. Most of the patients lived in Barton County, a rural area with above-average poverty and uninsured rates, and some were new mothers billed for delivery costs.
One patient, Joe Vasquez, was arrested along with his wife over a $4,561 bill from her emergency hysterectomy and spent two days in jail after the couple missed a court date, the Times reported.
“We had no money to pay,” Mr. Vasquez told the Times.
Another patient, Meischa Zimmerman, was arrested three times over six years — the first time while eight months pregnant — over a bill for a cesarean delivery that grew to more than $7,000 with interest, according to the Times.
Payton Fuller, a spokeswoman for Mr. Marshall, told the Times he “spent decades caring for patients regardless of their ability to pay” and that his hospital “used the exact same billing and outside collection procedures as every other business or hospital in Kansas.” A lawyer who represented Mr. Marshall in the cases told the Times the senator was not involved in decisions to pursue warrants, arrests or garnishments, though he did set the 18% interest rate through a contract patients signed.
Health law researchers told the Times that lawsuits against patients over medical debt are relatively uncommon among providers and that the scale of arrests tied to Mr. Marshall’s practice was “definitely on the extreme side.” Mr. Marshall, who is seeking reelection this fall, introduced legislation last year that would bar hospitals from suing patients who don’t publicly post their prices.
Physicians and other non-hospital providers, not hospital systems, now drive the majority of medical debt lawsuits nationally. A Connecticut-focused investigation by KFF Health News and the Connecticut Mirror found physicians and non-hospital providers accounted for more than 80% of medical debt suits filed there in 2024, up from about a quarter five years earlier, as hospitals faced growing scrutiny over their nonprofit, tax-exempt obligations.
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