Topic: Hospital charity care programs for covering PICC line & other procedures?
MariaA
Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)
Member # 9128
posted
I'm discovering that a few of my medically indigent friends with serious illnesses (one of them has MS and cancer, and another has Lyme) have successfully used their local hospital 'financial assistance' programs for getting procedures (PICC line for the Lyme one, cancer surgery for the other one) and even basic care (MS care for the guy with MS) covered. I'm going to try that route to see if I can get a PICC line or even a port done.
Both of my friends are/were in California but the hospitals are unrelated.
Has anyone ever looked into that? Here are two examples: Sutter hospital in Sacramento- this isn't the place my friends used:
I called that office for the St Joeseph's Hospital and the people I spoke with thought that everything would be covered for me since I"m at about half of federal poverty guidelines income level or less.
My friend with MS/cancer told me that the hospitals he goes to in Santa Cruz cover up to something like $30,000 in hospital bills, and I'm hearing similar things from the research I'm doing.
My LLMD doesn't have admitting privileges at the Eureka hospital so I'm trying to see how this would work at the other California hospital that he uses for his port procedures.
This might be a MAJOR source of care for those who are poor enough and totally uninsured. The trick is getting them to cooperate with an LLMD. you may want to ask your LLMd who he or she has admitting privileges with, then start searching through the website of the hospital for financial assistance, medically indigent, uncompensated care, etc.
Incidentally some of the hospitals whose websites I looked at, actually advertised a 20% discount for patients who are uninsured. This might mean that their 'insured' prices are inflated, or it might mean that you might be able to get some procedures, or, more likely, tests like a SPECT scan, done for cheaper than your LLMD might realize.
Has anyone used any kind of program like this to get care? I know not everyone qualifies, but it seems like what I'm learning is that what they decide may be more individualized than just following a set ofguidelines, so , for instance, if you are insured but the insurance won't pay for your Lyme care, it might be worth trying to see if you can get a symptathetic person in hte financial assistance office to get you into some kind of program there.
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