With input from members of our Stakeholder Advisory Council, the Financial Health Network developed recommended strategies for hospitals and health systems to help prevent medical debt. Although each recommendation is effective as a stand-alone, hospitals and health systems can achieve the greatest impact by implementing them all. 

Improve Financial Assistance and Repayment Programs

• • Expand financial assistance eligibility to include patients unable to pay medical bills, including insured patients with unaffordable out-of-pocket expenses.
  • Ensure financial assistance is available to all patients who may be eligible. 
  • For patients who are not eligible for financial assistance, expand repayment options and ensure they have access to these options prior to the billing process. 
  • Engage a broad range of constituents for regular review and improvement of financial assistance policies.
  • Halt legal action against patients eligible for financial assistance. 

Support Informed Patient Decision-Making

• • Elevate, improve, and effectively use price transparency tools to support informed patient decision-making.
  • Incorporate cost-of-care conversations into the care process, and provide education and training to care teams. 
  • Provide financial navigation services to help patients understand costs and access financial assistance.

Proactively Identify Risk of Medical Debt

• • Proactively identify patients who may struggle to pay medical bills.
  • Develop patient-centered approaches for assessing ability to pay, and link these assessments directly to financial assistance and repayment options.
  • Incorporate medical debt as an explicit focus area of Community Health Needs Assessments.