The suits pursued patients and their families, sometimes putting liens on homes. "I know my house will never be mine. It is going to be the hospital's," said Donna Lindabury, 70, who lost her case.
One North Carolina family's six-figure medical bill came from a state hospital. The attorney general, who is running for governor and says he's against high medical costs, tried to collect the debt.
Kristie Fields, a cancer patient in Virginia was urged to go public to seek help for her medical bills. But she worried about feeding hurtful stereotypes.
After emergency gallbladder surgery, a Tennessee woman said she spent months without a permanent mailing address and never got a bill from the hospital. She ended up in court a few years later.
More than half of the counties in the nation's so-called Diabetes Belt also have high rates of medical debt among their residents, an NPR analysis found.
Americans paid an estimated $1 billion in interest on medical debt in just three years, a federal agency finds. This includes use of credit cards often pitched in doctors' and dentists' offices.
More than 50 consumer and patient groups want the Biden Administration to aggressively protect Americans from medical bills and debt collectors. The effort follows a KHN/NPR investigation.
Instead of health insurance, the Rev. Jeff King had signed up for an alternative that left members of the plan to share the costs of health care. That meant lower premiums, but a huge hospital bill.
What would a world without medical debt look like? In Germany's former coal-mining region medical debt is almost unknown, despite economic challenges and health problems. Here's why.
Some credit cards advertised by hospitals lure in patients with rosy promises of convenient, low-interest payments on big bills. But interest rates soar if you can't quickly pay off the loan.
Black communities in the U.S. suffer disproportionately from health care debt. The reasons go back to segregation and a history of racist policies that have limited Black wealth.
A youth mental health crisis and a shortage of therapists and other care providers who take insurance are pushing many U.S. families into financial ruin. But it's rarely acknowledged as medical debt.
New policies to keep medical bills from sinking credit ratings sound good but will likely fall short for many hit hardest by debt — especially Black Americans in the South, such as Penelope Wingard.
Across the U.S., many hospitals have become wealthy, even as their bills force patients to make gut-wrenching sacrifices. This pattern is especially stark for health care systems in Dallas-Fort Worth.
