Children's Hospitals Today - Winter 2023 - 21

FINANCIAL STABILITY / FEATURE
Jones says the tax-preparation program
is a great way to introduce families to
other support programs available in
to help support some of those families who
may have slipped through the cracks.
RIP Medical Debt managed the entire
their community.
" We're trying to make an easy-to-access
system for families to get into the pipeline
of services we have to offer, " Jones says.
" We don't want the tax-preparation experience
to be transactional-we certainly
want it to help us develop deeper, trusting
and long-term relationships that help those
families accomplish all of their hopes,
dreams and aspirations. "
Erasing medical debt
Children's of Alabama worked with RIP
Medical Debt, a non-profit organization
committed to erasing medical debt through
donor support, to purchase and erase debt
for more than 21,000 families in Alabama.
RIP Medical Debt uses data to pinpoint
the medical debt of those most in need:
individuals who earn less than four times
the federal poverty level, which varies by
state and family size, or whose debts are 5%
or more of annual income. The organization
buys their debt and sends a letter informing
them that it has been erased. Families
have no tax consequences or penalties
to consider. Just like that, they're free of
medical debt.
Children's of Alabama and RIP Medical
A CLOSER LOOK
The burden of
medical debt
A poll from the Kaiser
Family Foundation reveals
the magnitude of medical
debt in America.
57%
of U.S. adults say they've
gone into debt in the past
five years because of
medical or dental bills.
with health care debt
owe more than $5,000.
24%
20%
with any amount of debt
say they don't expect
to ever pay it off.
Debt first connected in the midst of the
COVID-19 pandemic, when the economy
was slow, and families were facing more
hardships than usual. " We wanted to be a
good partner for our patients and our families and a good
community partner, " says Walton. " We saw no reason not
to do this. "
Children's of Alabama bills on an encounter-specific basis,
which leads to one health episode generating multiple bills.
This means that sometimes families on the cusp of the ability
to pay for their child's care may not see the full costs of a care
episode until after the fact. " We don't always readily identify
people who need financial assistance because a lot of times
they do have insurance, " says Walton. " But they may have
deductibles and copays that exceed their ability to pay for it. "
This opportunity with RIP Medical Debt allowed the hospital
Source: KFF Health Care Debt Survey
process between Children's of Alabama
and its patients. In this case, the non-profit
had existing donors who wanted to use
their funds to eliminate medical debt for
families across the state.
After the hospital handed off secure files
to RIP Medical Debt, the team identified
specific accounts that met the non-profit's
criteria. Then it purchased the debt from
the hospital's third-party debt agency at
a discounted rate with money provided
by Alabama-based donors. " We made
good on the bad debt and gave the agency
what they were due for managing those
accounts, " says Walton. Once $29.1 million
worth of debt was canceled out, RIP
Medical Debt then sent letters to the families
letting them know their debt was canceled.
" We were happy to do what we could
to help our families who really had a need, "
says Walton.
Lowering the barrier
for assistance programs
In 2019, Gillette Children's in St. Paul,
Minnesota, identified a " lack of financial
support and advocacy " as a priority health
issue for their organization and the families
they serve. While there were existing
programs in place to help families, the revenue
management team wanted to expand
these efforts, making it easier for families
to qualify for support and broadening the scope of financial
assistance. This led the revenue cycle team down a path
of constant evolution to improve the Gillette Assistance
Program (GAP), a donor-supported assistance program.
The first thing they did was expand eligibility for the assistance
program so more families could qualify-from a
household income of 300% of the federal poverty level up to
400% of the poverty level. Then, they continued to dig in and
scrutinize their financial assistance efforts to find opportunities
for improvement.
The first potential barrier the team discovered was the
number of forms and information families must provide to
CHILDREN'S HOSPITALS TODAY Winter 2023
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Children's Hospitals Today - Winter 2023

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