A nonprofit group called R.I.P. Medical Debt has relieved Americans of $11 billion in hospital bills. But that did not improve their mental health or their credit scores, a study found.
Over the past decade, R.I.P. Medical Debt has grown from a tiny nonprofit group that received less than $3,000 in donations to a multimillion-dollar force in health care philanthropy.
It has done so with a unique and simple strategy to tackling the enormous amounts that Americans owe hospitals: buying up old bills that would otherwise be sold to collection agencies and wiping out the debt.
Since 2014, R.I.P. Medical Debt estimates that it has eliminated more than $11 billion of debt with the help of major donations from philanthropists and even city governme…
Read the full article at: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/08/science/rip-medical-debt.html