KSHB 41 reporter Elyse Schoenig covers the cities of Shawnee and Mission. She also focuses on issues surrounding the cost of health care, saving for retirement and personal debt. Share your story idea with Elyse.
4 in 10 adults are paying off medical debt. And medical debt is an increased risk factor for a lot of your other finances – there's even new research showing its impact on housing instability.
Since I cover healthcare costs for KSHB 41, I wanted to localize these statistics and their impact. I connected with Trista Boyd,who has been paying off medical debt since around 2022. She’s working with Money Management International to pay off her debt and is on track to do so hopefully this year.
“We had been trying for many years to have a child,”she said. “(We) needed to go through the IVF process.To expand upon that, our son was born 14 weeks early, so he had a 102 day-long stay in the NICU.”
Trista said this left them with almost $67,000 in debt, through expenses directly and indirectly related to his medical care.
I also connected with Jared Walker, the founder of Dollar For, to bring perspective to this story. Dollar For helps people crush their medical debt.
“A lot of times, they (people in medical debt) are not going to make their rent on time, they're not going to make their mortgage on time,” he said. “Even buying quality food or being able to repair their car.”
His advice to anyone with medical debt is simple.
“I always tell people, check to see if you're eligible for financial assistance,” Jared said. “Ask for an itemized bill. Let's see if there's anything wrong with this hospital bill. And then I think, an affordable payment plan.”
Trista Boyd will tell you firsthand that medical debt comes with lots of risk. But she’ll also tell you her son was a risk worth the reward.
“He is our million-dollar baby, and he's worth every dime,” she said.
