Stressed About Bills? These Nonprofits Offer Financial Aid to Patients and Families
If you or a loved one are living with a serious illness, you may have experienced the financial stress that can come along with medical care. Whether you have insurance, Medicaid, Medicare, or are paying out of pocket, medical bills tend to stack up quickly. Add this to your everyday expenses like food, transportation, childcare, rent, and sometimes medical aides and home modifications, and paying bills seems insurmountable.
Did you know that there are nonprofit organizations that help offset costs for people living with serious illness? Every organization is different, but they all understand the stress and day-to-day needs of people living with a serious illness, and their loved ones. And they all have the goal of improving quality of life by reducing financial strain.
Nonprofits That Help People with Serious Illness and Their Families Pay Bills
While there are many nonprofit organizations that offer financial assistance to people with serious illness, we’ve rounded up twelve below.
- American Kidney Fund helps people with kidney disease with health insurance premiums, transportation costs, prescription medications, and other health-related needs
- CancerCare offers limited financial assistance for cancer-related costs and co-pays for treatments, and offers social workers to help connect you with additional resources
- Dollar For reduces medical bills by helping patients access “charity care” within hospitals, which offers discounts or bill forgiveness programs based on income
- Family Reach helps people living with cancer, and their loved ones, with non-medical expenses (e.g., housing, transportation, food, and more)
- Good Days provides financial support for people living with serious illness, assisting with co-pays, transportation costs, premiums, and diagnostic testing
- HealthWell Foundation fills the gap by assisting with health insurance co-pays, premiums, deductibles, and out-of-pocket expenses
- NeedyMeds provides a database of financial assistance programs to help offset medication costs and other health care expenses (e.g., prescription assistance programs, coupons, rebates, etc.)
- Patient Access Network (PAN) Foundation offers financial assistance to help with out-of-pocket treatment costs
- Patient Advocate Foundation offers a searchable directory of national and regional resources dedicated to improving access to care and decreasing the financial burden of medical treatment
- Pink Fund provides financial assistance for non-medical, cost-of-living expenses (e.g., housing, transportation, and utilities) for people with breast cancer who are in active treatment
- The Assistance Fund helps patients and families with out-of-pocket treatment costs for nearly 100 diseases
- Triage Health offers education on the legal and practical issues related to navigating a serious illness, and offers a toolkit to help patients find the financial resources they need
Other Ways to Ease Medical Costs and Lower Bills
If you are already receiving palliative care and are experiencing financial stress, talk to your palliative care team. They may know of additional resources. If you are not receiving palliative care, speak to your doctor (e.g., cancer doctor) or medical team.
Also, stay tuned for a future blog post about additional ways to get help with medical costs, including asking your human resources department (if you have insurance through an employer) to step in and help fill gaps in insurance coverage, finding clinical trials, and more.
About GetPalliativeCare.org
GetPalliativeCare.org is an online resource for patients and families that focuses on providing information on palliative care from the point of diagnosis. At GetPalliativeCare.org, you can take a short quiz to see whether you could benefit from palliative care and find a nearby provider. The site is provided by the Center to Advance Palliative Care.
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