A letter marked “Seriously Past Due” or “Final Demand” from the home medical equipment company AdaptHealth could now mean $47 in the mailbox, with no claim form. The company agreed to a $14,311,500 settlement of a North Carolina class action over its billing and collection practices. Payments go automatically to 142,539 identified residents, as long as they received notice of the settlement by mail or email.
Who gets the $47 without filing
The settlement administrator’s official site defines Class C as people AdaptHealth’s records identify as having been sent a “Seriously Past Due” or “Final Demand” letter while living in North Carolina. The related dates of service run from April 3, 2019 to March 31, 2026. The site counts 142,539 people in the group.
Class C members who received a settlement notice by mail or email get a payment of $47 per person automatically, the site says. Class C has a fund of $6,700,000, and 142,539 payments of $47 come to about $6.7 million. The $47 is a flat amount, not a share that grows or shrinks with the size of the original bill.
Automatic does not mean unconditional. The site says Class C members who did not receive a notice must submit a valid claim form to be paid. Members whose mailed notices were all returned as undeliverable have to file a paper Class C claim form, OpenClassActions reports.
The case is Jerry W. Ray v. AdaptHealth Corp., No. 1:22-cv-00898, in federal court in North Carolina. The question for a household that received one of the letters is whether the notice reached the same address, and whether it is still in a drawer or a spam folder.
What changed this year: Social Security and Medicare change every year, and nobody sends you a memo. The Retirement Money Brief breaks down what changed and what to do. Bonus when you subscribe: our Open Settlements & Refund Tracker.
Get the Brief and the settlements tracker →
We may earn a commission from links on this page.
Residence at the time matters. Both classes are limited to people who lived in North Carolina when they were billed or sent the letter. A customer who got the same kind of letter while living in another state is outside this settlement, even if the equipment and the company were the same.
Class B shows how narrow the relief is. Late fees were part of the billing complaint, but the site says that class receives no financial or other relief. People who paid a late fee on an equipment bill should not expect a separate line item for it.
The two payment amounts are flat. The $47 does not depend on how much AdaptHealth demanded, and the $3,500 does not depend on how much was billed for equipment that was not in the home. For many households the $47 is a modest sum, which makes it easy to ignore a mailing from a settlement administrator.
The $3,500 group is small and has to file
A separate group, Class A, is much smaller. The site identifies 464 North Carolina residents who were billed for equipment they allegedly did not have, for dates of service from April 3, 2019 to April 3, 2025. Eligible members who submit a valid claim receive $3,500 each.
Class A has its own fund of $1,624,000, which is 464 payments of $3,500. Claims go through the “File a Claim” link on the settlement website. Class B, a subset of Class A affected by late fees, gets no separate money, and the site says that class is resolved without financial or other relief.
The two funds add up to $8,324,000 of the $14,311,500 total. The rest is not split out on the site, but attorneys’ fees are capped at up to one-third of the settlement amount, which would be about $4.77 million, plus administration costs and expenses, all subject to court approval.
December 8 and the January hearing
Claim forms, opt-outs and objections are all due December 8, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. The site warns the deadlines “may be moved, canceled, or otherwise modified,” and tells visitors to check back often. Anyone who wants to be left out of the class to keep the right to sue on their own has the same date.
The final approval hearing is set for January 20, 2027 at 2 p.m. Eastern in Winston-Salem, according to OpenClassActions. The administrator’s site does not state the hearing date or when the $47 payments will go out. The payments depend on the judge approving the settlement, so the money is not yet in the mail.
For questions about an address or a notice, the administrator, JND Legal Administration, lists a toll-free line at 1-833-285-1329 and an email address on its FAQ page. A mailing address is also listed. A letter to the administrator that includes the old and new address creates a written record.
The date to circle is December 8. A person who received the notice and a Final Demand letter should confirm the address now; a person who did not receive the notice but did get a collection letter should file. The unanswered question is whether the check will find the right house.
Did a Final Demand letter from AdaptHealth reach the right address?
Settlement notices carry several dates, and here they include December 8 for claims, opt-outs and objections and a January 20 hearing. A North Carolina resident who loses track of which date matters for them, or of where the payment is supposed to go, can miss the $47 or the $3,500 entirely.
The Settlement & Refund Recovery System teaches the four-date rule for reading a settlement notice and includes a claim log and payment tracker. Its Money Owed Tracker in Excel is pre-filled with all 51 state unclaimed-property offices, which helps when a notice or check goes to an old address.
Track every settlement date and payment with the Settlement & Refund Recovery System →
More Financial Reading
- 21 Ways to Stretch a $2,087 Social Security Check
- 15 Places to Find Your Share of the $4.25 Billion States Give Back
- 17 Medicare Money Moves Now That Part D Caps at $2,400
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
