Patients with a large hospital bill may be paying money they never owed. An explainer from [KFF Health News and Tradeoffs](https://kffhealthnews.org/health care-costs/medical-debt-hospital-bills-presumptive-eligibility-explainer-charity-care/), published Oct. 1, reports that hospitals billed patients for at least $2 billion that they likely did not owe in one analysis. It also says nearly 3 in 4 adults with past-due medical debt owe that money to hospitals.
For many households, the first step is a single question to the billing office: Was I screened for financial assistance? Nonprofit hospitals, which received an estimated $24 billion in tax exemptions in 2020 according to the report, must keep a written financial assistance policy and make reasonable efforts to check eligibility before aggressive collection. Yet many patients never learn the help exists.
