After Blackstone acquired TeamHealth for $6.1 billion in 2017, its subsidiary, Southeastern Emergency Physicians, a Tennessee-based ER staffing company, began an aggressive program to sue patients over billings. As news organizations ProPublica and MLK50 found, Southeastern had filed 4,800 lawsuits in Shelby County (Memphis) in about two years—more than three big Memphis hospitals combined. The firm’s bills did not tell patients, many of whom were poor, that they may have been eligible for charity care. In response to the reporting, TeamHealth backed off the lawsuits.
