November 28, 2017; CBS New York
Between January 2015 and February 2017, 86 people showed up at the Brooklyn Hospital Center after suffering a sexual assault to receive a forensic examination they hoped might help catch their attackers. For 85 of those 86 people, the trauma of the attack and examination was followed by the insult and inconvenience of a hospital bill.
The matter came to the attention of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman because one woman contacted his office after she was “billed seven different times for her rape kit, hundreds of dollars each time” and then had her bill sent to a collections agency.
This week, Schneiderman announced a settlement with the hospital, in which “Brooklyn Hospital will maintain a Sexual Assault Victim Policy that prevents such improper billing and will provide full restitution to