ABSTRACT
Implications What happens if a medical tourism facilitator goes bankrupt and the hospital or physician is owed for services rendered or was paid in the last 90 days? Creditors are often surprised to learn that they may be required to turn money over to a debtor’s bankruptcy estate. Under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, the debtor in bankruptcy or the trustee of a bankrupt debtor can seek the return of payments made to creditors that were made during the 90 days preceding the „ling of the debtor’s bankruptcy case (known as the Preference Period) if the transfers are “preferential” [11 U.S.C. § 547(b) (4)]. A payment made during the Preference Period may be “preferential” if it “enables a creditor to receive payment of a greater percentage of his claim against the debtor than he would have received if the transfer had not been made and he had participated in the distribution of the assets of the bankrupt estate.”* In medical tourism, providers and other vendors who are owed money for services rendered are creditors of the facilitator or insurer that owes them payment for services and supplies.
