FairMedicalBills publishes information people use when they are dealing with a bill they may not be able to pay. This page explains how we source that information and how to get something corrected.
Sourcing
We work from primary sources wherever they exist:
- Hospitals’ own financial assistance policies, plain-language summaries and application forms
- Federal rules, including the requirements that apply to nonprofit hospitals and the No Surprises Act
- State statutes and regulations on charity care, medical debt and balance billing
- Agency guidance and enforcement actions from bodies such as CMS, HHS, the CFPB and state attorneys general and insurance departments
- Court filings and settlement documents in hospital billing cases
Every hospital entry links to the hospital’s own documents, and every article links to the rule or announcement it relies on.
What we verify before publishing
- Who a program covers, and the income guidelines exactly as published
- What documents an application requires, and any deadline that applies
- Whether a rule is federal, state-specific, or the hospital’s own policy
- The date the policy or form was last updated, and the date we checked it
- Whether a protection applies to the reader’s type of insurance or plan
How we handle uncertainty
Financial assistance rules vary enormously between hospitals, and between states. Where a rule is state-specific we say which states. Where a hospital has not published its income limits, we say that rather than estimating. We do not tell readers they qualify — only the hospital or program can decide that.
What we do not do
- We do not provide legal, medical or financial advice
- We do not process applications, negotiate bills, or contact providers on a reader’s behalf
- We do not promise that a bill can be reduced, forgiven or eliminated
- We do not take payment to list, rank, describe or omit a hospital
- We do not publish eligibility figures we cannot trace to a published source
Corrections and updates
Hospital policies change without announcement. Each directory entry carries the date it was last checked, and we re-check entries on a rolling basis. If you find an out-of-date income limit, a dead application link or a policy that has changed, tell us through our contact page and we will verify and update it. Substantive corrections are noted on the page.
Independence
Coverage decisions are made on the basis of what is useful to patients. Any commercial relationship that could reasonably affect coverage is disclosed on the page where it applies.