End Medical Debt
Publications
The Campaign to End Medical Debt: How New York Dramatically Reduced Patients’ Medical Debt Burden
Mia Wagner, Elisabeth Ryden Benjamin
Summary:
Medical debt can devastate patients physically, often in inequitable ways. In 2019, CSS received feedback from patients and survey data that health care providers were increasingly using aggressive medical debt collection strategies. In response, we led a campaign consisting of three advocacy tactics: leveraging research to document and publicize the issue; engaging hospitals directly; and organizing at the grassroots level.
The campaign has yielded several victories, ultimately leading to a 99.8% decline in the number of medical debt lawsuits filed by hospitals and a 78% decline in the proportion of New Yorkers with medical debt in collections. This report details our victories and the strategies we used to be successful.
Issues: Access to Health Care
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