
Medical Debt Defense— Defenses and Aggressive Counterclaims You Can Use in your State (2025)
Includes a Live Web Event on 08/20/2025 at 2:00 PM (EDT)
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Register
- Nonmember - Free!
- Legal Aid Member - Free!
- Private Attorney Member - Free!
Medical debt is the wild west of debt collection. Every debt collector wants in on it and consumer attorneys often find themselves without the tools to fight back. This seminar will give you those tools so that you can both vigorously defend medical debt collection as well as go on the offensive.
This webinar will appeal to both private practitioners and legal service attorneys who need defenses against medical claims and want to explore counterclaims that can range from single counterclaims to possible class actions.
Please note this session will include a one-hour webinar and a one-hour online conversation.
What You Will Learn
• What the central aspects of medical debt collection are, including an explanation of the “Chargemaster,” your rights to access the hospital’s pricing schedule, and items you should be demanding in the discovery process.
• Which affirmative defenses will give you a fighting chance, open up discovery even where a counterclaim isn’t available, and increase your standing with regards to settlement.
• How to use FDCPA and UDAAP statutes to challenge the fairness of the hospital’s billing practice and the debt collector’s actions.
• What discovery items you should request and how they will help you defend and prosecute cases.
• How to follow the Center for Medicare/Medicaid Services and their ever-evolving rules for hospital billing.

Berneta Hayes
Berneta L. Haynes is a senior attorney who focuses on consumer energy policy and medical debt. At NCLC, she recently authored Protecting Older Adults from Surprise Medical Bills and The Racial Health and Wealth Gap: Impact of Medical Debt on Black Families. She is also a contributing author to the medical debt chapter of NCLC’s Collection Actions practice manual and NCLC’s Surviving Debt consumer guide.

Keith Hagan
Founder
Hagan Law Office
Keith Hagan is a Partner at Hofer Hagan LLP, a consumer rights and commercial litigation firm based out of Indianapolis. Aside from solar issues, he has litigated complex medical billing disputes for the last eight years as well as commercial lending issues (on the side of the little guy). Keith is a regular contributor, speaker, and panelist on issues regarding medical billing defense, FDCPA, UDAP, and other counterclaims. He is a graduate of the University of Cincinnati College of Law, Class of 2008, and the University of Kansas Class of 2001.
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