GoFundMe started as a crowdfunding site for insurance underwriting.ideas and dreamsAnd, as GoFundMe co-founders Andrew Ballester and Brad Danfoss once said, “For life’s important moments.” In the early years, it funded honeymoons, graduation gifts, and the church’s missionary efforts to needy overseas hospitals. Now, GoFundMe has become the go-to for patients looking to escape the nightmare of medical bills.
A research result has been revealed The number of campaigns related to medical causes in the United States in 2020 was approximately 200,000, 25 times the number of such campaigns on the site in 2011. Currently, more than 500 campaigns are dedicated to seeking financial help for people’s treatment. Most are children with spinal muscular atrophy, a neurodegenerative genetic disease. A gene therapy recently approved by pharmaceutical company Novartis for young children with the disease costs about $2.1 million for a single dose of treatment.
Perhaps the most damning aspect of all this is that crowdfunding to pay for expensive treatments is no longer considered unusual. Instead, it is becoming a normalized part of the healthcare system, such as getting blood tests and waiting for appointments. Do I need a heart transplant? Start a GoFundMe to do get on the waiting list. It’s widely accepted that he turns to GoFundMe when faced with a bill, so in some cases patient advocates and hospital financial aid officials recommend crowdfunding instead of being sent to collections. There is also.my inbox and This month’s bill project (Administrator KFF Health News, where I serve as a senior contributing editor and NPR) has become a kind of complaint line for people who can’t pay for medical care, and every time a patient says they’ve been advised that GoFundMe is their service. , I’m appalled. best option.
GoFundMe itself acknowledges that patients rely on its platform. Ari Romeo, a company spokeswoman, said the most common category of fundraisers the company hosts is “medical expenses.” However, he declined to say how much of the campaign is health-related, as people who start campaigns choose their own fundraising goals. For example, if a child needs to travel to another state for treatment, they may choose the family or travel category, she said. Therefore, although the company had previously estimated that; Third Most of the funds raised on this site are medical-related.it may be an undercount.
Andrea Coy of Fort Collins, Colorado, turned to GoFundMe as a last resort in 2021 after an ambulance bill put her family’s finances on the line. His son Sebastian, then 1 year old, was admitted to a local hospital with pneumonia, but his oxygen levels dropped and he was rushed by helicopter to Children’s Hospital Colorado in Denver. REACH, the air ambulance transportation company that contracted with the hospital, was out of network and charged the family nearly $65,000 for the ride, more than $28,000 of which was paid by Coy’s insurance company, United Healthcare. Ta. Still, REACH continued to send Ms. Coy’s family invoices for the remaining balance, and she then began calling Ms. Coy regularly to request her collection, and she complained that the company was harassing her. She said that she could feel it now.
Coy made numerous calls to the company’s human resources department, REACH, and United Healthcare, asking for help resolving the incident. She applied for financial assistance from various patient organizations but was repeatedly denied. Ultimately, her unpaid balance was reduced to her $5,000, but that was still on top of her $12,000 that her family had to pay out of pocket for Sebastian’s actual medical expenses. It was more than I could afford.
That’s when the hospital’s financial aid officer suggested she try GoFundMe. But as Coy says, “I’m not an influencer,” so the appeal “only provided a little bit of temporary relief. We hit a wall.” They are in a lot of debt and want to get out of it.
A REACH spokesperson said in an email response that patient privacy laws prevent them from commenting on specific cases, but the bill would be legal if the ride took place before the federal Surprise Attack Act went into effect. said. (The law protects patients from these air ambulance charges and goes into effect from January 1, 2022.) But a spokesperson said: “If a patient is facing financial hardship, We will work with patients to find a fair solution.” What is “fair” and whether that includes asking for an additional $5,000 over and above the $28,000 insurance benefit for transporting a sick child is, of course, subjective.
Research shows that in many ways GoFundMe Socioeconomic disparities tend to persist It’s already impacting medical costs and debt. If you are a celebrity or part of a circle of friends who have money, your crowdfunding campaign is much more likely to be successful than if you are middle class or poor. When the family of former Olympic gymnast Mary Lou Retton started fundraising on another platform *spotfund for her recent ICU stay, which she didn’t have insurance for. Approximately $460,000 in donations (Retton said he was unable to get affordable insurance through the Affordable Care Act because of a chronic illness that has resulted in dozens of orthopedic surgeries.) prohibited by insurance company We will not deny insurance coverage or charge abnormally high fees based on your past medical history. )
And even the most robust funding can feel inadequate when you consider America’s health care costs. If you’re looking for help buying a $2 million drug, even tens of thousands of dollars isn’t much.
rob solomon Platform CEO From 2015 March 2020and who was named one of them? time magazine’s 50 most influential people In healthcare, Said He said, “I hope more than anything that ‘medical’ doesn’t become a GoFundMe category.”he said KFF Health News “The system is terrible. It needs to be rethought and rebuilt. Politicians are failing us. Healthcare companies are failing us. They are real.”
But despite the lofty ambitions of its original vision, GoFundMe is a private, for-profit company. In 2015, the founders sold a majority stake to a group of venture capital investors led by Accel Partners and Technology Crossover Ventures. And when I asked about medical costs being the most common reason for GoFundMe campaigns, the company’s current CEO, Tim Cadogan, said high medical costs and financial cruelty are probably what made his company famous. He appeared to be less critical of the health care system than his predecessor.
“Our mission is to help people help each other,” he said. “We are not and cannot be the solution to complex, systemic problems that are best solved through meaningful public policy.”
That’s true. Despite the site’s hopeful atmosphere, most campaigns only generate a fraction of the money owed. A 2017 study from the University of Washington found that nearly all healthcare spending campaigns in the United States failed to meet their goals, with some raising little or no money. Although the average campaign only reached about 40% of its target amount, there is evidence that returns, measured as a percentage of target, are getting worse over time.
Carol Justice, a recently retired public servant and longtime union member in Portland, Oregon, turned to GoFundMe after facing an unexpectedly large bill for bariatric surgery at Oregon Health & Science University.
She planned to pay about $1,000 left in her deductible after her health insurance company paid the $15,000 maximum for the surgery. She didn’t understand that the cap didn’t mean she had to pay the difference if an in-network hospital charged more.
And it did, leaving her with an $18,000 bill, paid in full at once or in $1,400 monthly increments. “That’s more than my mortgage,” she told me. “I was on the verge of filing for bankruptcy or losing my car and house.” She called the hospital’s financial aid office multiple times, but many went unanswered and she was not eligible for assistance. The promise to “get back to you” about whether there was one was never fulfilled.
Justice said a health coach provided by the city of Portland suggested starting a GoFundMe. The campaign netted her about $1,400 in one monthly payment, including her $200 from her health coach and her $100 from her aunt. She dutifully sent her donations directly to the hospital.
The hospital system said in an email response that it cannot discuss individual cases, but that “financial assistance information is readily available to patients and can be accessed at any point in the patient’s journey to OHSU.” Stated. Starting in early 2019, OHSU will remove barriers for patients most in need by offering expedited screening for financial aid and awarding financial aid without the need for an application process if certain criteria are met. I worked on it. ”
This special story has a happy ending. Desperate, Ms. Justice went to the hospital and placed herself in the financial aid office, where she had a tearful meeting with a hospital representative who, given her finances, was unable to pay the bill. I decided it wasn’t necessary.
“I was going through everything and I was just crying,” she said. She wants to give back to those who donated to GoFundMe, she said. But so far, the hospital has not refunded the $1,400.