HOW TO GET HELP FROM DOLLAR FOR

Dollar For helps patients crush medical bills by making charity care known, easy, and fair. While Dollar For does not pay medical bills for patients, we are here to help you navigate hospital financial assistance programs and eliminate your hospital bills.  Our services are completely free – no strings attached.

Here are the steps:

1: CHECK IF YOU ARE ELIGIBLE

Use our screening tool to confirm that your hospital will consider you eligible for financial assistance based on their policy, your household size, and your household income. Watch a video on how to use our screening tool.

Please remember, the hospital will make the decision to approve or deny you for financial assistance. Our screener tells us if you meet the basic requirements but there are a lot of reasons that a hospital might deny someone for charity care. Dollar For will do our best to help you, but we can’t guarantee we can eliminate your bill.

2: Pick A Service

Once we confirm you might be eligible, you will be offered two options.

Full Service

Dollar For can prepare and submit your charity care application to your hospital.  

If you choose this option, we’ll ask you to fill out a questionnaire to collect all the information we need. The form will take about 15 minutes. Please be prepared to share patient information about the bills, household income, and expenses – and to upload your recent pay stubs, tax returns, and bank statements.  Watch a video on how to fill out our full service questionnaire.

Once we get your info, we’ll prepare your hospital application. You’ll need to provide accurate and complete information to us, and to respond to our follow-up questions quickly. 

We will submit your application to the hospital within 1-3 weeks. We will let you know when we have submitted the application and give you instructions on what comes next.

Please note:

  • Under federal law, nonprofit hospitals are only required to accept a financial assistance application for 240 days after they send you the first post-discharge billing statement.  Dollar For will do our best to meet the deadline but we can’t guarantee it. It’s your responsibility to ensure your application is filed in a timely way. You may have different rights granted in your state or in your particular hospital’s financial assistance policy.
  • Even if Dollar For works with you to apply for hospital financial assistance, Dollar For doesn’t act as your agent.
  • Dollar For is neither a covered entity nor a business associate under HIPAA.
Self Advocacy

We can give you instructions, tips and tools to submit the financial assistance application on your own.  

If you choose this option, we’ll send you emails with instructions for every step of the process. You can get your application submitted as fast as you want – even today. And you can always email or text us with questions.

3: Get A Resolution

Once your application has been submitted, the hospital should call, mail you a letter, or send a message through their online portal in about three weeks. Be on the lookout for their response. 

No matter who submitted the application, the hospital will contact you directly with questions and updates. You may still get bills and collections phone calls while the hospital is reviewing your application. That doesn’t mean it’s not working, but it does mean you should pay attention to these communications.

Please let us know what you are hearing from the hospital. We’ll email and text you for updates and to give tips on next steps. If you don’t hear from the hospital after three weeks, you’ll need to call them to find out the status of your application. Here are tips on making this call.

If all goes well, you’ll get a letter confirming that your bill has been canceled.  If your application is denied, Dollar For can help you appeal that decision. 

Have more Questions?

We are here to help!  Check out our frequently asked questions or contact us using our online contact form to get more info.

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