#hospital debt

[reasonsforhope]

Toledo City Council just approved a plan to turn $1.6 million in public dollars into as much as $240 million in economic stimulus, targeted at some of the Ohio metro’s most vulnerable residents.

“It’s really going to help people put food on the table, help them pay their rent, help them pay their utilities,” says Toledo City Council Member Michele Grim, who led the way for the measure. “Hopefully we can prevent some evictions.”

The strategy couldn’t be simpler: It works by canceling millions in medical debt.

Working with the New York City-based nonprofit RIP Medical Debt, the City of Toledo and the surrounding Lucas County are chipping in $800,000 each out of their federal COVID-19 recovery funds from the American Rescue Plan Act.

The combined $1.6 million in funding is enough for RIP Medical Debt to acquire and cancel up to $240 million in medical debt owed by Lucas County households that earn up to 400% of the federal poverty line.

“It could be more than a one-to-100 return on investment of government dollars,” Grim says. “I really can’t think of a more simple program for economic recovery or a better way of using American Rescue Plan dollars, because it’s supposed to rescue Americans.”

How It Works

Under the RIP Medical Debt model, there is no application process to cancel medical debt. The nonprofit negotiates directly with local hospitals or hospital systems one-by-one, purchasing portfolios of debt owed by eligible households and canceling the entire portfolio en masse.

“One day someone will get a letter saying your debt’s been canceled,” Grim says. It’s a simple strategy for economic welfare and recovery.

RIP Medical Debt was founded in 2014 by a pair of former debt collection agents, and since inception it has acquired and canceled more than $7.3 billion in medical debt owed by 4.2 million households — an average of $1,737 per household...

Local Governments Get Involved

The partnership with Toledo and Lucas County is the third instance of the public sector funding RIP Medical Debt to cancel debt portfolios.

Earlier this year, in the largest such example yet, the Cook County Board of Commissioners approved a plan to provide $12 million in ARPA funds for RIP Medical Debt to purchase and cancel an estimated $1 billion in medical debt held by hospitals across Cook County, which includes Chicago.

“Governments contract with nonprofits all the time for various social interventions,” Sesso says.

“This isn’t really that far-fetched or different from that. I would say between five and 10 other local governments have reached out just since the Toledo story came out.”

What's the Deal with Medical Debt?

An estimated one in five households across the U.S. have some amount of medical debt, and they are disproportionately Black and Latino, according to the U.S. Census Bureau...

Acquiring medical debt is relatively cheap: hospitals that sell medical debt portfolios do so for just pennies on the dollar, usually to investors on the secondary market.

The purchase price is so low because hospitals and debt buyers alike know that medical debt is the hardest form to collect...

The amount of debt canceled for any given household has ranged from $25 all the way up to six-figure amounts. Under IRS regulations, debts canceled under RIP Medical Debt’s model do not count as taxable income for households...

Massive Expansion Coming Up

After not one but two donations from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, totaling $80 million, RIP Medical Debt is planning for expansion.

It’s using a portion of those dollars to create an internal revolving line of credit to expand to places where it can find willing sellers before it has found willing funders.

The internal line of credit means the nonprofit now has new, albeit still limited, flexibility to acquire debt portfolios from hospitals first, then begin raising private or public dollars locally to replenish the line of credit later and make those funds available for other locations.

“People often ask, do you only work with nonprofit hospitals, or do you work with for-profit hospitals? And I’m like, I just want to get the debt, regardless of who created the debt. If it’s out there, I want it,” Sesso says.

Fundamentally, they are not solving the issue of medical debt, but easing its pressure from as many lives as possible — while also upping the pressure on lawmakers and the healthcare industry.

“We’re intentionally taking the stories of the individuals whose debt we have resolved, and putting their stories out into the world with intention in a way that tries to push and create more of that pressure to fundamentally solve the problem,” she says.

-via GoodGoodGood, 4/6/23

#toledo #ohio #chicago #cook county #new york #medical debt #healthcare #healthcare access #united states #us politics #debt crisis #debt relief #hospital #nonprofit #good news #hope

[incoherentbee]

pheonix wright does NOT give his employees company healthcare only because he doesnt think injuries stick, and legit tells them to walk everything off.

#it worked for him so he thinks itll work for everyone #he would be in debt to the hospitals for his stays but his sugar daddy/ courtroom rival takes care of it w/o wright realizing #pheonix wright #ace attorney

[queenboimler]

fully believe buck will lose his apartment and have to move in with eddie, not because of a fire but because after all the medical emergencies this man has had the past few year he has to be broke

#he's probably millions in medical debt im not even joking #911 abc #i once spent less than 6 hours in the hospital and owed $7.000 #and this man has had a ladder truck fall on him #almost died from a pulmonary embolism!!!! #caught in a tsunami #and got struck by lightning and DIED #not to mention all the little shit too!!!

[dailynarilamb]

《 Oh? Well More For Me! After All What Could Go Wrong! 》

Day 80 (The Debt 7 Prev)

#cult of the lamb #narilamb #answer #dailynarilamb #hospital tw #medical imagery #cotl leshy #The Debt

[loveerran]

Medical Bill Assistance - For Real

I think you will all like this one :)

https://dollarfor.org/

I think most of you are aware that more than half of all U.S. hospitals are nonprofits. Nonprofit hospitals must have charity care programs to keep their tax-exempt status. These programs, also called financial assistance, decrease medical bills for low and middle-income patients. The org linked above will qualify you and make it happen. A high percentage of you qualify and (shockingly) the medical providers aren’t advertising the program.

Don’t have the spoons to face this on your own? They will do this with and for you: https://dollarfor.org/debt-forgiveness/.

What you will need:

About 3 minutes

The name of the hospital, the amount billed, and the approximate date of your most recent bill

Your household's size and annual income

Don’t want someone from a nonprofit helping with your personal medical stuff? Want to do it on your own? They have a walk-through for that: https://dollarfor.org/resources/how-to-apply-for-charity-care/step-one-check-your-eligibility/

You do deserve this!

#please feel free to reblog #they will do some heavy lifting #dollarfor.org #medical debt relief #charity care #debt forgiveness #obamacare #health insurance #and lack of health insurance #they also have a list of nonprofit hospitals by state #so you can visit the correct ones

[wvexyz]

self indulgent doodle since my pen decided to be nice today

#she had to get an mri but refused to get one unless he did too #so now he's like $2k in debt to the hospital #im cringe but im free #genevieve mountaintop #evergray #my art #evergray sso #ssoblr #star stable online #star stable #sso #oc x canon #fanart #sso fanart #star stable art #star stable fanart

[alwaysbewoke]

#private equity firms #capitalism #capitalism ruins everything #capitalism in medicine #late stage capitalism #healthcare #veteran emergency room doctor #ming lin #peacehealth st. joseph medical center #bellingham washington #coronavirus pandemic #hospital preparedness #social media criticism #teamhealth #blackstone group #private equity #healthcare industry #physician staffing #peer review process #due process rights #patient safety #financial entity #acquisitions #rural hospitals #physicians' practices #nursing homes #hospice centers #air ambulance companies #healthcare billing management #debt collection systems

[24062]

anyone else in a deadend job and has no idea what theyre doing with their life. no? just me? okay great

#i dont know what to do. #how do you go from working customer service > to an office job or something IT #you have to go fucking study it and i dont want to go even more into debt than i already fucking am #i dont want to be in debt in the first place but i cant do anything about that #i wish i had just. not done lvl5 hospitality why did i do it? im so stupid like i fucking dropped out so its fucking useless to me anyways #i dropped it cause my fucking life went fucking down hill and it hasnt stopped #going downhill since then #ever since 2020 everything that could go wrong for someone it has happened to me #i just wish i had something nice going for me but i have nothing and i dont know how to get out of this situation because i am just stuck #speaking #im venting here and on twitter god i cant even afford a fucking therapist either to help with this situation

[tboycringe]

nothing like getting high as fuck at 3am and playing stardew valley <3 like yo these mines are fire (i'm at my breaking point)

#my hospital bill ... #local farmer goes into debt because they cannot take a snack to the mines #stardew valley

[aknolan]

I love how once Parker gets going on doing the right thing she really puts so much effort into that. She wants to do the right thing so badly.

Up on the mountain when leaving the guy behind, she has the conversation with Eliot about the right thing. About how the others would stay, and would die there right next to the guy's corpse. And she hates leaving him there, but she does it. She thinks the right thing to do would be to keep trying, but she doesn't.

But doing the right thing is more complicated than that. Parker figures out something that no one else could have.

She figures out the thing that only someone who is thoroughly unwilling to leave the man behind and is not going to die next to him can figure out.

She looks at his final message, to see if he has any final wishes she can fulfil.

And he does.

His final wish is that no one dies trying to get his body back down.

(And a couple other things, but that's besides the point.)

I think this episode shows that while Parker's style is a little different... she's really good at doing the right thing, especially in situations where it gets complicated because it puts her at risk. She tries until she can't, and then she does the next best thing.

She does everything she can, and then gets back down the mountain so it doesn't go to waste.

#I have related thoughts about how despite nathan being in the 'would stay with the corpse' category #is actually not as good at doing the right thing as parker is #and parker is repeatedly shown making the choice to help people #going back in to the building with the steranko because someone has to stop this #deleting the medical debts #even back earlier during season 3 she gives the client money at the end of one of the episodes - before it became standard! #and in the historical episode it's parker who doesn't want to leave the guy alone in the hospital #even way back in season 1 she has at least two episodes where it's parker that wants to help #between the stork job and the juror no. 6 job #leverage #parker leverage

[undecidingfate]

Hello, I and my family need a total $5000 for medicine, hospital operations, house renovations, and to repay debts. More immediately, we are hoping to buy a lamb for Eid al-Adha.

Kindly donate or reblog my pinned post. Thank you and be blessed 🙏🏾

I MAY NOT HAVE A JOB, BUT I CAN SHARE THIS

#donations #insulin #Eid al-Adha #diabetes #diabetic #hospital #debt settlement #debt relief #house renovation

[bright-and-burning]

thinking abt my frustrations w the way ppl (and specifically. europeans) talk abt americans as some monolith (often in a way that quickly devolves into classism and racism lol) and. you know what tumblr. for all that you frustrate and upset me. as someone who experienced a variety of gun violence incidents first hand as a kid and as a teenager. i do appreciate not having school shootings thrown in my face as some sort of "gotcha." the bar is in hell here (thank you twitter for that one) but by god at least i don't have to deal w that shit every time i even think about talking about the united states

#gun violence tw #also as part of this i looked up like. who the average american is #and wow. if u built the average american they would make 47k/year and owe 87k in debt #and i just remembered like 60% of americans are living paycheck to paycheck. going to lay face down real quick #like obviously i am VERY fortunate and thankful for where im at in terms of. #i have a job and a degree and i dont really have to worry abt going hungry (anymore) and i dont have to worry abt . getting bombed #but i will throw up if i think about how literally everyone i know is a hospital bill or two away from homelessness #sorry im in a Mood rn #saw a really annoying post from someone i dont follow and just got . maddddddd

[zarovich]

mental health recovery is so fucking stupid. if i dont get help, i'll get worse but getting help is expensive as hell and will ALSO make things worse cuz wow, who would've guessed having to choose whether you should go to the doctor but skip having meals or get to eat but not get the medical attention you need would make someone severely depressed and suicidal?? plus added into the equation, having physical health problems and disabilities. so you can't do things that may help "normal" ppl cuz it would only cause more harm. god it's like i'm considering waiting until i get my next refill of propranolol and then taking all of it cuz i'm so fucking sick of this. like does anyone get this do you hear me cuz i'm sick of ppl acting like i'm crazy for this

#personal #vent #sui mention #jsut ranting cuz im so angry at so many things #and i cant say this outloud cuz shocker id get hospitalized like that would help. yeah having medical debt would make me feel soooo good 🙄

[saintlesbian]

“you can have all the music you want, but this way, you can also have health insurance!”

Tracy, as pragmatic as ever! 😊

#general hospital #pentababbles #HELPPPP SHE FUNNY AS HELL FOR THIS #also blq good luck with the corporate espionage. lmao #how does this girl keep ending up in people’s pockets in people’s debt #all for the sake of chase??? girl you’d think she’d have learned after the first time

[kohakhearts]

so two weeks ago my kneecap spontaneously dislocated. no one really knows whats up with that. i get raised eyebrows and “but what did you do”s every time someone sees my splinted leg and asks what happened. so the orthopedist says this stays on for six weeks. then, you can do physiotherapy and we’ll hope this never happens again.

ok, great. so the good news is i CAN put weight on it. the doctor in the hospital gives me a pair of crutches, smiles at me like it’s not 6am and i haven’t been sitting in the er all night, says Just In Case. that’s great too.

the bad news?

i live on the third floor of a building with no elevator.

the building i work in has three floors and one elevator on the opposite side from where we’re located, which can only be accessed with a special key anyway. oh, and there’s construction going on this summer - so actually, the elevator isn’t even going to be accessible. plus, it doesn’t go to the third floor anyway, which is where my classroom is, at the end of the hallway.

that’s fine, though. i take public transit to and from work every day. at least the metro stations have elevators, right? well…14 out of about 70 stations in the city have them. i’m lucky that my local one does - the station i transfer at for work doesn’t have one to the platform i have to transfer to. the one i leave work from has three flights of stairs from the platform to the terminal.

so, keeping in mind i have to go up and down the stairs at work by the whims of my children and supervisors, and the staff room where i have to eat my lunch is on a different floor than my classroom, i’m averaging 20+ flights of stairs every single day. and cannot bend one of my knees, which is at the end of each day about as swollen as it was the day i dislocated it. my doctor prescribed me a month’s worth of naproxen, which my pharmacist was shocked by. she said, usually you only need this for a week. until the swelling goes down.

but the swelling is managed with some ice here and there anyway. so i’ll live. what really hurts is when i’m on the bus - because my commute to work involves two busses and two trains each way - and people trip over my leg because they just aren’t paying attention. i am at the mercy of kind strangers who notice and stand protectively over my leg, when i am lucky enough that upon boarding a bustling bus someone even gives me their seat. otherwise, i’m forced to stand on one leg to avoid putting too much force on my injured one each time we hit a bump.

(three times since my injury i have been the only person to offer my seat to another person with limited mobility on the bus, which every time the person in question has denied while everyone else’s eyes remain down and mouths remain shut.)

and lets not forget - i live in a city where everything is built atop huge fucking hills. at the top of one is the hospital. just below that, my university’s campus and student clinic.

am i just complaining for the sake of complaining? a little bit. but mostly i am thinking about how the inaccessibility around me is actively making it more difficult for me to heal from what is, spontaneity aside, a fairly common injury. i can’t quit my job. i need to attend my appointments. were it not june, i’d have to go to class. i am incredibly lucky to have friends who are willing to help with groceries and laundry, which would be particularly difficult for me due to the number of stairs i’d have to climb with my hands full, but if i didn’t - those are not things i could stop doing for myself and expect to survive for six weeks either, especially when i’m working 40 hours a week with 2+ hours of commuting a day.

anyway. maybe there’s not a lot the average person can do to help people with limited mobility. but giving up your seat on the bus is a pretty good first step and always has been.

#taylor.txt #life update for anyone even remotely interested #gee taylor why arent you writing anything. gestures rapidly. I AM SO FUCKING TIRED #i have to wake up around 5am every day to get to work on time cause i have a walking speed debuff of like 200% #500% on stairs If we’re being honest. god nerfed me for the summer which is SAD because my brain got nerfed for 2 full years and now this #dont take my tone to be indicative of anything though. in many respects im actually doing great and thriving #my real issues are The Brain Disorder which unfortunately i cant do much more than cope with until the end of summer #when im done work and i take my cat to the kitty dentist and put myself an extra few thousand in debt because her old owner couldnt be assed #to take her to the vet once in a while i guess. i dont know. guys my life is such a mess. dont even get me started on gallstones #(still waiting to get an mri done at the stupid hospital on the big fucking hill. but whatever right. ITS ONLY BEEN A MONTH) #but yeah im doing great and i mean that genuinsly like im not being sarcastic in spite of it all

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

huh they just let fuckin anyone have a grownup credit card these days huh. and apparently that was a huge source of my moving worries solved in under thirty seconds. upsetting how completing the tasks actually works

#it is crucial to note that i have an extremely good credit score despite the staggering amount of hospital and student loan debt #bc i hate spending money and i had a baby emergency card with a $200 limit for. all of college so like six years. #i should have a moving tag. #the great new england escape #i am going to go into debt to move but IT WILL BE OKAY and IT WILL BE PAID OFF. #sometimes u have to spend money to drastically improve your life