{"id":545,"date":"2022-12-23T10:26:32","date_gmt":"2022-12-23T10:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/?p=545"},"modified":"2022-12-23T10:26:37","modified_gmt":"2022-12-23T10:26:37","slug":"khn-nprs-bill-of-the-month-at-5-a-treasury-of-solutions-for-confounding-medical-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healthynewsusa.com\/?p=545","title":{"rendered":"KHN-NPR\u2019s \u2018Bill of the Month\u2019 at 5: A Treasury of Solutions for Confounding Medical Bills"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In 2022, readers shared<\/a> more than 1,000 personal stories of medical billing problems, contributing one patient at a time to an ongoing portrait of the rippling financial consequences of becoming sick or injured in the United States.<\/p>\n

Many of the submissions received during the fifth year of KHN-NPR\u2019s \u201cBill of the Month\u201d investigative series conveyed the same message: I want to tell my story so what happened to me won\u2019t happen to anyone else.<\/em><\/p>\n

The stories told this year illuminated some of the major financial decisions American patients are pressed to make in their most vulnerable moments. We met Peggy Dula of Illinois<\/a>, whose experience illustrated the financial risk patients accept when they get into an ambulance, even one from a local fire department. Sean Deines of North Carolina<\/a>, who received a $489,000 air ambulance bill, offered a case from before the new federal law took effect last January banning surprise bills, including air ambulance rides. It also demonstrated how insurers can still stick patients with such a bill if they determine the services weren\u2019t \u201cmedically necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

The coverage revealed the measures some take to avoid a big medical bill, like the Fierro family of Arizona<\/a>, who drove their son to Mexico to treat a dislocated shoulder after racking up big bills from an American hospital for other emergencies.<\/p>\n

Our stories from 2022 are collected here, rounding out another year of this important project pursued by a nationwide reporting team since February 2018. Give this year\u2019s stories a read and a listen, and you\u2019ll learn more about how to protect yourself and your loved ones from a big, unexpected, or downright wrong bill<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Click on the people below to hear their stories.<\/em><\/p>\n

Bill of the Month is a crowdsourced investigation by\u00a0KHN<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0 NPR<\/a>\u00a0that dissects and explains medical bills. Do you have an interesting medical bill you want to share with us?\u00a0 Tell us about it<\/a>!<\/em><\/p>\n