In 2003, Lisa Rollins of Belmont slipped and fell on the ice outside her apartment. She needed more than $80,000 in back surgery and medical services, which she received at Lakes Region General Hospital in Laconia. She hoped to recover money from a personal injury lawsuit against her landlord. But in the meantime, she was sued by the hospital for payment.

Similarly, Peter Boerner of Raymond was in a car accident two years ago that caused him to rack up a $10,000 medical bill at Elliot Hospital in Manchester. Boerner was also involved in a personal injury suit against the driver of the car and was sued by the hospital.

Neither had insurance.

On average, local hospitals file as many as 10 lawsuits per month to collect on unpaid medical bills, according to county court records. The hospitals - Lakes Region, Elliot and Concord Hospital -defend the practice. In some cases, they say, it's the only hope they have of contacting patients and getting paid.

But dozens of lawsuits fighting the procedure have been filed around the country, including two recent cases in New Hampshire. Attorney Chris Grant of Portsmouth is representing both Rollins and Boerner, who are suing Lakes Region and Elliot hospitals, respectively. In both cases, the patients say they were charged higher rates because they don't have insurance and then harassed by the hospitals for payment.

"These hospitals call themselves non-profit, but here they are charging people who can least afford it the full boat," Grant said. "That doesn't sound very charitable to me."

The hospitals say they usually file lawsuits when they suspect patients have won money in personal injury lawsuits but want to keep it rather than pay their medical bills - or when a patient has other as-sets, like a home, but doesn't want to ante them up.

Other times, hospitals sue patients because they disappear, changing addresses so the bill never ends up in their mailbox.

"A lot of times, people are not responsive," said Bruce Burns, chief financial officer at Concord Hospital. "It takes time to finally sit down with them."

Records in Merrimack, Belknap and Hillsborough county courts show that most of the people being sued now visited the hospitals at least a year ago. Their outstanding tabs range from about $4,000 to more than $200,000, though many are under $20,000. Some lawsuits looked to put liens on patients'property, meaning the hospital would be reimbursed from the sale of that property.

In the lawsuits against Elliot and Lakes Region hospitals, Grant calls the act of suing patients for medical bills "aggressive,""intimidating" and "humiliating." He alleges that uninsured patients, like his clients, are charged twice as much for services when they walk through a hospital door because insurance companies are able to negotiate lower prices for their clients.

"To me, that's taking advantage of people who don't have the ability to know what's fair," Grant said.

Spokesmen for all three hospitals said they have programs in place to help uninsured people pay for their care. There is also a statewide program, the New Hampshire Health Access Network, that sets up guidelines for how much hospitals should charge low-income patients without insurance.

Shawn LaFrance, executive director of the Foundation for Healthy Communities, which runs the Health Access Network, said the program allows people with up to $100,000 in property and $10,000 in the bank to qualify for discounts of up to 100 percent, which are good at any hospital in the state. But at some point, he said, people have to be financially responsible for their health.

"There is an issue of what are people's priorities," he said. "You can't have three snowmobiles and a second home in Florida (and qualify). There are some people who don't have anything."

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