Medical debt can crush even the insured

Monday, September 19, 2022 (HealthDay News) — After weeks of hospitalization, your bill arrives and you can’t believe the amount owed. How is that possible even if you have goodness health insurance And most importantly, how will you pay it?

Unfortunately, you are not alone. More than one in 10 American adults and nearly one in five American families have them medical debtI found a new study. To make matters worse, incurring medical debt increases your chances of not being able to afford food, rent, mortgage or utilities and losing your home.

“Medical debt is incredibly common and it’s toxic,” said study author Dr. Stevie Woolhandler. She is a primary care physician and Distinguished Professor at Hunter College in New York City.

It’s a vicious cycle, said Woolhandler, who is also a lecturer in medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston and a research associate with the Public Health Research Group, a consumer advocacy nonprofit.

“People get sick and go into medical debt, and that causes food insecurity and housing insecurity, which makes them sicker, so they need more medical care and they take on more medical debt,” she said.

Bottom line? “They’re getting sicker and poorer, sicker and poorer,” Woolhandler explained.

For the study, researchers examined data from the 2018, 2019 and 2020 US Census Bureau surveys about income and participation in programs for a group of people who participated throughout the three years. They used this data to isolate the effects of medical debt.

The study showed that the average medical debt was about $2,000 per adult and about $4,600 per American household.

Medical debt was common even among insurance owners.

“There have been other reports of medical debt, but this is the first time we’ve actually been able to link it to consequences such as staying without food and losing housing,” Woolhandler said.

Middle-class Americans were as vulnerable as those on low incomes to medical debt. The study found that people with military health insurance had the lowest rate of medical debt at just under 7%.

The researchers reported that the people most at risk of new medical debts were those who had recently become disabled, had been hospitalized, or had lost their health insurance.

It’s time to fix this mess, and it’s possible, Woolhandler said.

“Polls show that a majority of Americans would support a system in which the government pays all medical bills,” she said.

The recent No Surprises Act helped make things a little better. This law went into effect in January and protects people with insurance from receiving sudden medical bills from unexpected out-of-network coverage for Medicare.

She said there are other things you can do to reduce your risk of incurring disabling medical debt. “If you go into hospital and get a bill that you can’t pay, try to negotiate,” she said. “You’re in a much better position to talk to the hospital than the collection agency.”

She said many hospitals have financial aid programs, too. I always suggested reviewing any medical bills and making sure they are accurate.

“We would like to see a ban on unusual collection practices such as lawsuits, wage garnishments, and liens on homes for individuals who simply cannot pay astronomical medical debt,” Siso said.

more information

RIP Medical Debt provides tips on how to avoid medical debt.