Interviews with purpose-driven leaders who are dedicated to helping others and making a positive impact in the world.
February 21, 2024
Jared Walker | Dollar For
Jared Walker is the founder of Dollar For headquartered in Vancouver, WA. Follow on Twitter/X, Instagram, and LinkedIn and learn more at dollarfor.org.
TELL US, WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT DO YOU DO?
My name is Jared Walker and I’m the founder of Dollar For. We’re an organization that eliminates medical debt by enforcing hospital charity care policies. We hope to make hospital charity care known, easy, and fair.
HOW DID YOU GET HERE?
I started this organization after watching my own family go through a medical crisis. I wanted to help people in that situation avoid the financial burden that comes with a medical crisis, which is often exactly what happens. I started this organization initially as a crowdfunding platform. I grew up in Portland, Oregon, and I started doing events at coffee shops, breweries, or music venues and would raise small dollars every month. I’d pool the money together and pay medical bills for someone in the Portland metro area. I did that for several years until I met an attorney who asked if I’d ever heard of hospital charity care, and I hadn’t. He explained that when the Affordable Care Act passed, it required nonprofit hospitals (which most hospitals in America are) to have charity care, which is free or reduced care for people who meet the income requirements. If you are within a specific income range, hospitals in America are legally required to write off or reduce your medical bills. And nobody knows about it.
Jared Walker is the founder of Dollar For headquartered in Vancouver, WA. Follow on Twitter/X, Instagram, and LinkedIn and learn more at dollarfor.org.
I felt like a chump because I had been paying medical bills for low-income families who would have been eligible for these programs. That is what sparked the new and improved Dollar For. When I met Eli, who is now our general counsel at Dollar For, and he told me about charity care it shifted the entire organization because I realized I could help more people. I started reading these policies and looking at the applications. It’s not an easy process. Eli and I would meet at breweries and fill out applications for people who needed help with their medical bills. We got about $1M of medical debt to relieved for people in a few months. We were helping a lot more people and having a bigger impact. I also realized that no one knows about this. I’m shouting from the rooftops trying to tell people about charity care, talking to journalists, talking to news stations, and just saying, “I have this story, this could help a lot of people.” and I was not having any luck. They wanted to talk about the negatives of the system and not the potential solution.
At the beginning of 2021, I got on TikTok for the first time and saw this video asking, what’s a piece of information that feels illegal to know? So I made a video about charity care. The video got 30 million views and it was just a quick 60-second video telling people what charity care is. Now we have tens of thousands of people reaching out for help.
WHAT DO YOU STAND FOR? WHY IS THIS WORK IMPORTANT TO YOU?
One thing that we say a lot is a medical crisis shouldn’t mean a financial crisis. That’s what drives the work, hoping that we can create something so patients who go through something like this don’t have to feel so overwhelmed. The number one cause of bankruptcy in America is medical debt. People neglect care all the time because of the cost; they just don’t even get the care because of fear of the cost. It’s this enormous problem. I feel like charity care is the best-kept secret and an underutilized resource, so we’re trying to get information out there.
WHAT IMPACT ARE YOU MAKING?
To date, we’ve eliminated $40 million in medical debt for people all over the country. There have been studies done about the implications of that for people’s mental health. People say that, because of our organization, they were able to continue their education. Some people didn’t get kicked out of their apartments or were able to purchase a car or hold a steady job. The elimination of medical debt is great, but it opens up a lot more for people. Our primary impact metrics are people served and medical debt eliminated. But beyond that, we have a lot of patient stories, and we ask every patient we help if they would be willing to talk to media or policy advocates.
Through our patient advocacy, we’ve been able to push policy change at the hospital and even at the state level. We were able to help get a law passed in Oregon to require screening patients for charity care before sending them to collections. We were able to get the Washington state hospitals to no longer deny patients based on a residency. There are 40 other individual hospital policies that we’ve been able to change. I really didn’t expect when I started that we would be able to use this for better policy.
WHAT (OR WHO) INSPIRES YOU TO DO THIS WORK?
It’s always the patients. It’s always the people. Just recently, I logged onto TikTok, and it’s been three years since that video, but there are still new comments. We have a staff Slack channel called “Celebrations.” Every single medical bill that we eliminate is posted there. It’s really, really fun because throughout the day, I will get these notifications. It can be a $30 medical bill, or it could be a $300,000 medical bill. That is the secret sauce on what keeps it going and the motivation. I think not just for me, but for the whole staff, those stories are powerful.
WHAT’S YOUR VISION, YOUR BIG DREAM FOR THE IMPACT YOU WANT TO MAKE?
I just want a better healthcare system in America. That doesn’t really include charity care because it would not be needed if the system were better. In the current system, our vision is our mission to make charity care known, easy, and fair. No one knows about it. Even if you do know about it, most hospitals still require you to fax your applications. It’s not easy. Even if you know about it and have access to it, hospitals call all the shots. I’d love Dollar For to be able to push hospitals and policy forward to the point that if someone is eligible for charity care, they don’t even get a bill. There’s a big intake process at all these hospitals. It would be very easy for them to ask what the household size and income are and verify if someone is eligible.
WHAT CHALLENGES ARE YOU FACING?
Convincing hospitals that this is in their best interest is a challenge. That’s the next step for our organization. We can continue to roll on TikTok, partnering with community organizations and word-of-mouth referrals, but more than $40 million is needed to make a significant dent in this problem. We need to impact a greater volume of patients. The way to do that is through working with hospitals to improve their process. Hospitals could very easily direct people to Dollar For to get this help. Convincing hospitals that this is a win-win is going to be a challenge.
WHAT’S ONE THING YOU WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR CAUSE AND/OR THE WORK YOU’RE DOING?
I always say, especially to people going through this, there is no shame in medical debt. You’re not alone. I think a lot of people are in this mindset, and there’s this narrative that if you’re in debt, you’ve been irresponsible. This is not a debt that people choose to take. You shouldn’t lose everything because you get sick. A medical crisis shouldn’t mean a financial crisis. I think that a lot of people are looking at organizations like Dollar For and they think they can figure it out on their own, or they’re embarrassed. I’d say this has nothing to do with you; it has everything to do with a bad system.
HOW CAN OTHERS SUPPORT YOU OR YOUR CAUSE?
Our impact is directly tied to our funding. If you need help with medical bills, go to DollarFor.org. If you’re eligible, we would love to assist you with the charity care process and provide relief for medical bills, and there’s no harm in trying; you can check your eligibility in a matter of seconds on our website. Also, we are funded through philanthropy, so you can donate at DollarFor.org. And, you can follow us on Instagram and Tiktok @dollarfor.
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