Hospital patients waiting in an emergency room or convalescing after surgery are being confronted by an unexpected visitor: a debt collector at bedside.

This and other aggressive tactics by one of the nation’s largest collectors of medical debts, Accretive Health,
were revealed on Tuesday by the Minnesota attorney general, raising
concerns that such practices have become common at hospitals across the
country.

(MoneyWatch) How did breast cancer survivor Lisa Lindsay end up behind bars? She didn’t pay a medical bill — one the Herrin, Ill., teaching assistant was told she didn’t owe. “She got a $280 medical bill in error and was told she didn’t have to pay it,” The Associated Press reports. “But the bill was turned over to a collection agency, and eventually state troopers showed up at her home and took her to jail in handcuffs.”

Although the U.S. abolished debtors’ prisons in the 1830s, more than a third of U.S. states allow the police to haul people in who don’t pay all manner of debts, from bills for health care services to credit card and auto loans. In parts of Illinois, debt collectors commonly use publicly funded courts, sheriff’s deputies, and country jails to pressure people who owe even small amounts to pay up, according to the AP.

A 3-year-old with curious eating habits is recovering after swallowing 37 high-powered magnets. KPTV reports that after she ate them, the magnets formed a dangerous ring inside Payton Bushnell’s digestive track, snapping her intestines together and ripping holes in both her small intestine and stomach.

“They saw a circle had formed in her stomach, and they thought she swallowed a bracelet,” Payton’s mother, Kelli Bushnell, told the station.

A recent report from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says there have been 22 cases of children swallowing magnets since 2009. And the New York Times reported that while swallowing a single magnet rarely poses problems, swallowing even just two can prove fatal. The Canadian government explains on one of its health information sites that once someone has swallowed more than one magnet, the magnets can literally travel through the intestines until they link up. Along the way, they can create dangerous blockages and even slowly tear through the intestinal walls themselves.

KODIAK, Alaska — As the holiday season comes to a close, Aaron Cooper has many things to be thankful for, most importantly his life.

Four years ago in Fairbanks, Alaska, Cooper, a 2007 Kodiak High School graduate, was involved in a life-threatening snowmachine accident.

The veteran rider was practicing freestyle tricks when things turned for the worse. While doing a jump, Cooper lost control of his sled and had to abort.

He jumped, and when he came back down to earth he broke his back, causing bone fragments to tear through his nerve sac and shatter his nerve system.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government is scrambling to find the source of a salmonella outbreak likely linked to ground turkey that has killed one and sickened dozens more.

Finding the source of an outbreak hasn’t been easy; the government has been chasing the illnesses for months. The Agriculture Department, which oversees meat safety, said it is still investigating who produced the meat, and the department hasn’t initiated a recall.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The “golden years” may lose some luster for many baby boomers worried about the financial pressures that come with age.

Many of the nation’s 77 million boomers are worried about being able to pay their medical bills as they get older, a new poll finds. The concern is so deep that it outpaces worries about facing a major illness or disease, dying, or losing the ability to do favorite activities.

Another major concern among the boomers: losing their financial independence.

PALM DESERT, Calif. — First ladies, past and present, and others who called the White House home remembered Betty Ford on Tuesday, not just for her decades-long work against substance abuse but for contributing to a political era when friendship among lawmakers helped them govern.

Former first lady Rosalynn Carter called Ford a friend who “was never afraid to speak the truth.”

“She was someone willing to do things differently than they’d been done before,” Carter said.

Betty Ford was an advocate for those struggling and brought addiction and mental health issues to light, she said.

For nearly four years, a bacterial infection that left a Seattle-area newborn with severe brain damage while his twin brother developed normally has remained a medical mystery, traumatizing his family and stumping local and national disease experts.

Myles Massey, now 3, can’t speak or walk, must be fed through a stomach tube, has little use of the left side of his body and suffers from cerebral palsy and mental delays, all attributed to a rare Bacillus cereus infection that developed after his birth on Sept. 1, 2007.

Some people who need medical care but can’t afford it go to the emergency room. Others just hope they’ll get better. James Richard Verone robbed a bank.

Earlier this month, Verone (pictured), a 59-year-old convenience store clerk, walked into a Gaston, N.C., bank and handed the cashier a note demanding $1 and medical attention. Then he waited calmly for police to show up.

He’s now in jail and has an appointment with a doctor this week.

Verone’s problems started when he lost the job he’d held for 17 years as a Coca Cola deliveryman, amid the economic downturn. He found new work driving a truck, but it didn’t last. Eventually, he took a part-time position at the convenience store.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — The Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday charged Johnson & Johnson with bribing doctors in several countries to prescribe its drugs and medical devices.

The company has agreed to pay $70 million to settle the charges, without admitting or denying the allegations.