'Bill of the Month': The series that dissects and slashes medical bills

Over 6 1/2 years ago, KFF Health News and NPR kicked off "Bill of the Month," a crowdsourced investigation highlighting the impact of medical bills on patients.

The goal was to understand how the U.S. health care system generates outsize bills and to empower patients with strategies to avoid them. We asked readers and listeners to submit their bills — and they kept coming. "Bill of the Month" has received nearly 10,000 submissions, each a picture of a health system's dysfunction and the financial burden it places on the patients.

Since 2018, we have analyzed bills totaling almost $6.3 million — including nearly $2.8 million that patients were expected to pay out-of-pocket.

Cited at statehouses and the U.S. Capitol, the series has led to changes in health policy. Two patients featured by "Bill of the Month" were invited to the White House in 2019 to discuss their surprise bills: Elizabeth Moreno's $18,000 urine test and Drew Calver's $109,000 heart attack. In 2020, Congress passed the federal No Surprises Act, shielding patients from most out-of-network bills in emergencies, among other protections.

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/12/20/nx-s1-5220218/medical-bills-series-high-health-costs