A few months after Waynesboro, Virginia, resident Kanise Marshall delivered a baby boy on New Year’s Day 2023, the hospital bills rolled in.
Marshall's insurance paid Martha Jefferson Hospital more than $24,000, and she set up a payment plan for the remaining balance.
She thought she paid the full amount billed by the Charlottesville, Virginia, hospital until a process server showed up to her home in November 2025 – nearly three years later. Martha Jefferson Hospital, owned by Sentara Health, was suing Marshall for $2,366 in unpaid bills she said she didn’t know existed.
The nonprofit Sentara Health initiated more than 96,000 lawsuits in Virginia from 2010 through 2024, routinely suing patients who’ve struggled to pay their medical bills, according to a report by researchers from Stanford University, George Washington University and Patient Rights Advocate, a nonprofit that pushes for price transparency in health care.
While Sentara filed the most lawsuits of any Virginia hospital or medical provider to collect medical debt over the 15-year period, the Virginia-based chain was by no means alone. Virginia hospitals, doctors and medical providers brought 1.15 million lawsuits to collect $1.4 billion in medical debt from consumers.
