A First Aid Kit reader organized a medical-debt clinic

And we got to go. Here's what we learned.

A makeshift sign advertising the medical debt clinic on the second floor of the Brooklyn Public Library

In the last few weeks, you — our community — have been driving our work.

First, there was Thomas, a med student who distributed info cards at local hospitals about help dealing with medical debt — and wondered if we knew of a more-comprehensive info sheet he could pass around.

We didn't, so we gave one our best shot, and we asked you what we were missing — and some of you came through, with amazing online resources.

Also: One of you said you were thinking about setting up ongoing "office hours" at a local coffee shop to share bill-fighting tools.

We asked if any of you might try something similar — and we heard back from Rose Gasner: She was about to run a medical debt clinic at the Brooklyn Public Library on May 27.

Which was impeccable timing, because ON THAT VERY DAY Dan was in New York, and our team was having a meeting in Brooklyn, about a 10-minute walk from the library.

Of course we had to go.

Rose’s project

Rose is a retired health care lawyer whose background includes work in public health, managed care, and community health worker programs.

So she knows a lot about charity care — assistance many hospitals offer to reduce or forgive bills for patients who can’t afford to pay them — and she’s aware that not enough people know enough about it.

Last fall, through a chance meeting, she helped a recent college grad erase a heap of medical debt through charity care — and got an itch to share her knowledge with more people.

“ I've done health policy my entire career, but it was so rewarding to have that direct impact,” she told me. “And I started to think, how could I do more of this?”

So Rose reached out to the Brooklyn Public Library, and they were super game to partner with her — in fact, they had just done a student loan debt workshop like this a few weeks earlier.¹

“In my entire career, I've never had a program idea be adopted so quickly,” she said.

Then came logistics: Rose assembled a team of five volunteers with language skills and backgrounds in patient assistance. The library set aside a block of meeting rooms for the 27th, publicized the event, and created a system for folks to book a one-hour appointment with a volunteer.

At each appointment, a volunteer would help someone start as many as three charity care applications through a tool offered by the nonprofit Dollar For, who would continue working with the patients on their bills and applications from there.

And they’d offer a list of other resources — some of them NYC-specific — for people to take home. (You can check out that list here).

How it went and what they learned

By the time we arrived at the Brooklyn Public Library, Rose and her team had already tackled most of their appointments for the day.

They were excited about what they’d accomplished so far, but definitely learned some things.

For instance: Rose and her team thought the clinic would be pretty straightforward work — thanks to Dollar For’s awesome tool — and that one hour per person would be plenty.

But they soon realized that hour went by pretty fast, and they ran into unexpected situations they needed time to deliberate.

For instance, while we were talking with Rose, one of the volunteers came in with a question for her — how to choose which bills from a plethora to submit for initial review by Dollar For. They debated whether to submit the largest bills or the most recent (and landed on biggest).

 ”We thought that we'd be helping people more with their digital literacy,” Rose said. Instead, they ended up figuring out details like which bills were eligible for submission.

There were logistical bumps too: Some volunteers used laptops supplied by the library — and got slowed down figuring out how to scan and upload people’s documents onto an unfamiliar device.

None of which discouraged Rose.

“I think we’re onto something,” she said.

We think so too. We’re going to stay in touch with Rose as she keeps building on this, and we’ll let you know how it goes.

On that note, it’s worth checking the library in your area to see what kind of community events are going on. Or… pulling a Rose and pitching one yourself.

Definitely tell us if you do.

— Claire

1. The Arm and a Leg team are SUPER big library fans. And it looks like the one in Brooklyn has a surprising number of helpful programs. There's everything from a career center and language classes to free legal consultations for asylum seekers. Maybe your local library has programming like this too?