Since 2018, readers and listeners sent KFF Health News-NPR's "Bill of the Month" thousands of questionable bills. Our crowdsourced investigation paved the way for landmark legislation and highlighted cost-saving strategies for all patients
Billing experts and lawmakers are playing catch-up as providers get around new consumer protections, leaving patients like Danielle Laskey of Washington state with big bills for emergency care.
Medicare suddenly stopped paying for the pricey drug that prolongs his life. As he waits for an appeal, this retired physician wonders if he should give up treatment to spare his family the cost.
A family had more than $12,000 in medical bills they couldn't explain after their baby was delivered early. It turns out the doctors who cared for her worked at a different, out-of-network hospital.
A health system charged a woman for a shoulder replacement she didn't need and hadn't received. She didn't receive the care, but she did receive the bill — and some medical records of a stranger.
Even after their babies died, hospital bills kept coming. These parents of fragile, very sick infants faced exorbitant bills — though they had insurance. "The process was just so heartless," one says.
Preventive care, like screening colonoscopies, is supposed to be free of charge to patients under the Affordable Care Act. But some hospitals haven't gotten the memo.
Only 15 states require insurance to cover in vitro fertilization, a pricey path to parenthood. But expensive procedures and drugs can lead to unexpected bills even for the fortunate who are insured.
A dad's COVID-19 and a mom's fainting spell cost thousands, so when their son dislocated his shoulder, they drove him to Mexicali, where facilities rival those in the U.S., and had him treated for $5.
Diagnosed with aggressive leukemia while on a trip to Wyoming, a man thought his insurance would cover an air ambulance ride home to North Carolina. Instead, he got hit with an astronomical bill.
An insurer refused to pay bills related to the premature birth of the Bull family's twins because it said their delivery wasn't an emergency and their stays in the NICU weren't medically necessary.
A toddler burned his hand on the stove. The pediatrician told mom over the phone to take him to the emergency room. But after a long wait for a doctor who never showed, they left. Then the bill came.
After baby Dorian Bennett arrived two months early and spent more than 50 days in the neonatal ICU, his parents received a bill of more than $550,000 — despite having health insurance.
With few options for health care in their rural community, a Tennessee couple's experience with one outrageous bill could have led to a deadly delay when they needed help the most.
