One More Way to Help Patients Cope with Bills: Crowd Funding

Artists of all stripes have in recent years turned to the Internet to raise money for their projects, using websites such as Kickstarter. Now the same is available for those with unusual medical bills.

NPR reported on a new website, GoFundMe, where people can raise money for personal catastophes, including medical bills

Although “Crowd funding” is a relatively new term, it has been around as long as there have been medical bills, where family and friends raise money for someone with unusual medical expenses.

Now it has entered the Internet age, although it may be too early to say it has come of age, because the amounts raised by it represent a single drop in a swimming pool of medical debt. According to the NPR report, GoFundMe has raised $6 million so far for various causes.

It may be too new for patient financial services professionals to ever suggest using crowd funding to patients strapped by medical debt, but it is certainly going to part of the future.