Who makes this
My name is Joseph Lawrence. I build small, single-purpose calculators for decisions where the arithmetic is annoying and most of the people offering to help have something to sell.
What I am not
I am not a medical billing advocate, a patient advocate, an attorney, a certified financial counsellor or a healthcare administrator. I hold no credentials in any of those fields and I am not going to imply otherwise.
What I do instead is name the rule and show the work. The federal requirements this site relies on — section 501(r) of the Internal Revenue Code and the No Surprises Act — are public, and I cite them so you can read them yourself rather than take my word for it.
Where the method comes from
Two published sources do most of the work here. Section 501(r) requires nonprofit hospitals to maintain and publicise a written financial assistance policy, and to accept applications for at least 240 days after the first post-discharge statement. The federal poverty guidelines, updated each January, are the measure nearly all of those policies are built on.
The specific eligibility thresholds are set by each hospital, not by federal law. That is why the calculator says what is likely and sends you to the hospital's own policy rather than pretending to know it.
How this is paid for
Display advertising. I do not sell leads, take referral fees from medical-billing companies or debt-relief firms, or receive anything based on what you decide to do. If that ever changes it will be disclosed on the page it affects, and it will never sit on the decision a tool is advising.
Corrections
If something here is wrong, tell me and I will fix it. Rules change and hospital policies vary; corrections with a source are always welcome. Contact.