“Charity Care is the best kept secret in healthcare.” says Eli Rushbanks "Only 29 percent of the people who should be helped by 340B, are helped."

If, like me, you have not heard about Charity Care or Dollar For, I am glad you're here! This podcast will tell you about both Charity Care and the nonprofit, Dollar For. I learned about the program during a webinar by Patients Rising.

You'll learn more about your rights regarding healthcare, and about the help that's out there.

If you’re overwhelmed with medical bills, confused by insurance, your rights and about getting help, this podcast will be a wonderful education.

Eli Rushbanks is an attorney who works at the intersection of medical debt and consumer protection. He currently is the General Counsel and Director of Policy & Advocacy at Dollar For, a patient advocacy non-profit that helps patients apply for hospital financial assistance. In that capacity he works with patients, advocacy groups, lawyers, state and federal regulators, and hospital leaders to improve patient access to and experience with financial assistance. He helped build Dollar For from the ground up which, so far, has helped relieve over $60 million in debt for nearly 20,000 patients.

His work has been featured in publications such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and NPR. His reports on charity care policy have been cited by the CFPB and have been the basis for class action lawsuits for charity care violations. Eli says, "Fourteen percent of people who applied to a hospital for Charity Care, never heard back from the hospital. There is not uniformity on how these programs are run."

Terry Wilcox is the Chief Mission Officer with Patients Rising. Terry says that 340B sounds like a tax form, not something that patients know about. It’s not just to help patients, it’s to help hospitals too. But there has been some misuse of the program, “Expanded from 4 billion between 2000 and 2009, then the A.C.A codified the fact that they could expand, it ballooned to 66 billion dollars. And hospitals now have beautiful wings in their hospitals.”

The 340B Drug Pricing program was implemented by Congress in 1992 and it allows hospitals to purchase drugs at significant discounts to serve vulnerable populations. The program was originally added so that hospitals could treat underserved communities and help them stretch their resources.

To learn more about Dollar For: https://dollarfor.org

To learn more about Patients Rising: https://www.patientsrising.org/event/midday-masterclass-340b-in-focus-history-impacts-and-state-level-realities/

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