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.
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Four in 10 adults are paying off medical debt, which is an increased risk factor for other financial issues. There's even new research showing its impact on housing instability.
Since I cover health care 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.
Boyd is working with Money Management International to pay off her debt and is on track to hopefully do so 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.”
Boyd said this left her family with almost $67,000 in debt, through expenses directly and indirectly related to her son's 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,” Walker 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.”
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.
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