What are missing financial-assistance discounts on a medical bill?
A missing financial-assistance discount is when you qualified for a hospital's charity-care or financial-assistance program but the discount was never applied to your bill. Nonprofit hospitals must maintain a written financial-assistance policy, and patients are often billed full charges without being screened for the help they were eligible to receive.
Paid audits are available only in certain care states. See the current active-state list.
Under IRS section 501(r), tax-exempt nonprofit hospitals must have a written financial-assistance policy (FAP), publicize it, and limit what FAP-eligible patients are charged to no more than the amounts generally billed to insured patients. Many patients never learn they qualify.
Ask the hospital for its financial-assistance policy and application, and check the income and eligibility thresholds. If you qualify, the discount can be applied even after a bill is issued — nonprofit hospitals generally must let you apply for a period after your first billing statement.
In March 2022, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau estimated that Americans carried roughly $88 billion in medical bills on their consumer credit records — debt that in many cases includes charges patients could have had reduced through financial assistance.