HFMA

Atlas Health: Helping healthcare providers offer patients philanthropic financial assistance

Imagine sitting down for a consultation with the oncologist and learning about two fights ahead — one fight to live, and another to afford that fight. Now, imagine learning those bills are covered by philanthropic patient financial assistance programs because of the provider’s partnership with Atlas Health.

More patients than ever need financial assistance, whether they’re underinsured, uninsured due to unemployment or other issues and unable to afford COBRA (Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) coverage or facing high deductibles or unexpectedly high costs of care. The pandemic has only exacerbated this problem — an estimated 29% of Americans lost their health insurance in 2020, with more than half of those remaining uninsured in 2021, according to a ValuePenguin.com healthcare survey.

“Both myself and my wife had issues with medical bills as patients,” Atlas Founder and CEO Ethan Davidoff said. “We were in a fortunate place to be able to pay those bills. We started to see people diagnosed with cancer going on Facebook with GoFundMe campaigns.

“We found a bigger problem — all of the patients that choose to forego treatment. They are choosing to give up because they don’t want to leave their family with medical debt.”

But there are more than $30 billion in funds available for patient medical costs often associated with care for chronic diseases including cancer, rare diseases or conditions, and other high-cost therapies. Atlas Health mapped new processes to tap into the funds quickly and designed more efficient workflows to ensure funding for care delivery is made available to cover patients’ out-of-pocket medical expenses.

Read Full Article here from HFMA.