CEO: Financial Assistance

July 20, 2022

by Scott Thoreson, CCMH Chief Executive Officer

A few articles ago, I talked about the expense of healthcare and some of the reasons that are driving up costs. Today, I want to highlight one of the resources likely available to many area residents.

As a non-profit hospital, Carroll County Memorial Hospital (CCMH) is required to provide healthcare to patients regardless of their ability to pay. In our most recent audit, it was determined that $450,000 worth of charges were written off to charity care and $1.6 million worth of charges were written off to bad debt. The basic difference is that charity care is for patients who don’t have financial resources and can’t pay for their care versus bad debt is recognized as patients who don’t pay, but supposedly could pay. On the other hand, the patients who provide information and complete the simple process to apply for financial assistance and qualify for charity care have their account reduced or written off completely. Many times those patients who are categorized as bad debt simply haven’t taken the initiative to fill out the minimal paperwork to qualify for charity care. These patients have then historically been turned over to collection agencies with the resulting consequences showing up on credit reports.

At CCMH, we are actively promoting the Financial Assistance Plan as we would rather have patients possibly qualify for Medicaid, our local program for cost sharing or complete forgiveness of charges. Please call Jake DeMint at 660-329-6013 for billing assistance with the Financial Assistance Plan. As an example, a family of four making an annual income of $110,000 is still able to qualify for up to 65% of forgiveness of charges. Missouri recently agreed legislatively to participate in Medicaid Expansion which has taken place in most other states. This means a single adult without children in their household and incomes up to $18,000 per year or $24,352 for two-person households can qualify for Medicaid for their healthcare expenses. The process to apply for Medicaid has been challenging, but at CCMH we are able to help with this process and we encourage you to call Shandi Duff at 660-542-1695 ext. 3997.

I hope this article provides a bit more of an insight about the Financial Assistance Plan at CCMH. We can help patients understand and apply for governmental programs, such as Medicaid, along with our own Financial Assistance Plan.

If you have a certain topic you would like us to discuss in our next article, please reach out to us at info@ccmhospital.org. I wish you good health!

More in this Series:

CEO: Holiday Message (Published December 20, 2021) 
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-holiday-message

CEO: Different Types of Hospital Ownership (Published February 1, 2022)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-different-types-of-hospital-ownership

CEO: A Hospital is Still a Business (Published March 16, 2022)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-a-hospital-is-still-a-business

CEO: Why Healthcare is Expensive (Published May 4, 2022)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-why-healthcare-is-expensive

CEO: National Hospital Week (Published May 11, 2022)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-national-hospital-week

CEO: Social Determinants of Health (Published June 29, 2022)
https://www.carrollcountyhospital.org/news/ceo-social-determinants-of-health