Fundraiser ideas for rising medical bills?

I agree with what others have said already. Before you go charging off fundraising, you need to get a handle on what the insurance will and won’t cover, and what the costs are likely to be.

To raise money for anything, you need a goal. You need to be able to answer the question, “How much money do you need”, and “I don’t know” doesn’t cut it as an answer. At least figure a minimum needed.

You might also to to a lawyer about creating some kind of actual charity that would allow people to deduct their donations. I don’t know how long a process that would be, but if the amount you need to raise is really large it may be worthwhile.

One other thing – look at existing local and national charities for people in your MIL’s condition. There may already be a pool of funds you can tap in to.

Allow me to fight your ignorance. Here’s the strawman:

I never said that the patient here has health insurance and so there’s nothing to worry about. I just said that the OP doesn’t need to swallow scare tactics from UHC supporters and believe that even someone with health insurance will always have $100,000 of uncovered expenses for one week’s worth of medical care.

And my response to you was that there are many circumstances in which having health insurance is not mutually exclusive from having very high medical bills after a long stay in the hospital. Since you believe that people having lots of medical expenses to pay while having health insurance is “fairly ridiculous”, I thought I would educate you as to why your claim is “fairly ridiculous”. Which actually has nothing to do with UHC, as far as I can see.

That won’t happen as there is no applicable use of a 501(c)(3) designation for such an activity. What you can do is set up a Charitable Remainder Trust (gifts to which are tax deductible, but payments out of are taxed) - however CRTs typically require a sizeable initial contribution, because there are limits as to how much money can be paid out of them per year - definitely seek out a tax attorney for more information.

Is a “Charitable Remainder Trust” not “some kind of actual charity”?

How old is the patient? I only ask because I don’t believe you’ll have much luck getting people to donate money to help with an older person’s medical bills, especially one with insurance.

Not saying there aren’t ways to raise some of the cash that might be needed, but straight-up donations are going to be tough to come by I imagine.

Also, count me in the group that doesn’t think her out-of-pocket expenses will be nearly as much as you think.

A)She didn’t say $100K of uncovered expenses–she just said $100K. And the total bill is probably at least that high at this point.

B)That much in non-covered expenses in a week is entirely possible, depending on what happened to you–multiple specialist consults, getting transferred via ambulance or helicopter, long-term care, and lots of repeat testing adds up fast.

Hell, when my dad had his heart attack he was in for exactly one week, Christmas night to New Years Day. No transfers to another hospital, no consults, only in the unit a couple of days, the only tests he had repeatedly were EKG’s. The amount left over after insurance was just under $14,000…and that was 15 years ago. An online inflation calculator converts that to just over $20,000* today.

The OP’s mil hasn’t had bypass surgery, but she’s had an airlift and several extra days in ICU, which probably comes pretty close to evening out, so their non-covered expenses are probably equivalent to Dad’s. And that’s if she goes home today. Which, of course, she’s not. Two more weeks in the unit, a week or two on a regular floor, a couple-three months in a long-term facility…$100K in non-covered expenses is entirely possible.

*Don’t freak out, OP–most of that was waived by the hospital and cardiologist/surgeon. They wound up paying something on the order of $5,000 over a couple of years, most of it to the anesthesiologist who wasn’t waiving a single dime.

Ummm… :slight_smile:

You’ve mischaracterized what I said in every post where you’ve responded to me. So, I’m done responding to you.

Do tell? Can you not conceive of medical care that exceeds the coverage of a health insurance policy, or imposes co-insurance costs that are in themselves catastrophic?

How so? By quoting your actual posts? Or by pointing out that you are in fact wrong in your bafflement about why people would be concerned about unaffordable medical bills when they have health insurance?

He’s not laying down and dying at this point (he specifically said he needs to look into it further) but her husband was told by somebody within the insurance company that transportation is excluded from their policy. He “knows” this is true because of a fairly minor car accident after which he was charged 100% for his (at the time) minor son’s ambulance ride. He doesn’t figure there is any difference now just because the ambulance (well, the second one) in this case had wings. Another thing he is trying to figure out is whether or not this ICU stay falls under the same business to which any kind of cap is applied or whether he’ll be responsible for a straight percentage of total costs.

Also, I’m not running right out and hosting a spaghetti supper and raffle tonight. Just… in the future, if it’s needed, it would be nice to have some plan sketches ahead of time. Just saying.

Fifty. Her youngest son just graduated high school in the spring and is on his way to college in a month. Her middle son just deployed with his Army unit like a month ago. Ben is the oldest. He’s not even 30 yet.

The donate button is on the blog I started which isn’t even really “public”. It isn’t part of Blogger’s “show me a random blog” at all and I know what’s in the damn thing and couldn’t find it on Google. I would hazard a guess that most of the people who see that page and that donate button are family and friends, excepting only random friends of Facebook friends who might check it out just from curiosity. Nobody has actually solicited strangers for free money.

I know I’m not really responding to everything but I haven’t made it home yet. I’ll get to it later.

Ok, that’s cool. I just didn’t want the nuts with an ax to grind get you down–he isn’t necessarily going to owe a ton of money just because he had to take a medical flight and stay in the ICU etc.