In June of 2015 we posted on the positive decision of the US District Court for the Southern District of Ohio in the matter of Baisden v. Credit Adjustments, Inc. whereby the District Court found “prior express consent” was given to Credit Adjustments to call the Plaintiff’s cellphone when the number was presented to a hospital at the time of admission and thereby negated the Plaintiffs’ Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) claims. (original post and discussion of the facts of the case may be found HERE). On February 12, 2016, the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling of the District Court and found that the Plaintiffs had given express consent for their cellphone to be called. This decision is of importance because Credit Adjustments was not hired by the hospital directly, but by the anesthesiologists who also provided services to the Plaintiffs. The court found that the express consent was not only given to the hospital, but also applied to the “other health care providers” including the anesthesiologists and its collection agency. It is important to note that the consent did not “automatically” transfer and was carefully analyzed by the court in relation to the admission documents and the language they contained. Since the process of a single admission point is utilized by many healthcare providers and is a common practice in the industry, it is comforting to see the process upheld with regard to TCPA claims.
The complete 6th Circuit Opinion may be found HERE.
