One surgeon in Nebraska has come up with an incredible way to reduce his patients’ hefty medical bills, while also benefiting the community they live in.
According to CBS News , Dr. Demetrio Aguila has started allowing his patients who can’t afford to foot the bill for their surgeries to pay for those procedures by volunteering for local humanitarian groups.
The program began six months ago after Aguila noticed that more and more of his patients couldn’t afford their surgeries.
“We can’t ignore the people in our own backyard,” he told CBS News. “We want to be able to offer hope to patient who have lost hope medically.”
So, in an effort to reduce these patients’ financial burden and subsequent stress, his clinic Healing Hands of Nebraska started accepting volunteer work as payment.
Clinic staff calculate how many volunteer hours a patient owes based on how complex their surgery is.
Around 10 percent of Aguila’s patients qualify for the volunteer payment system.
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Tony Bowers and his wife, Bobbi, recently found themselves on the brink of bankruptcy, thanks to their insurmountable medical debt. So when Tony needed ankle surgery, they agreed to pay off the procedure by volunteering at a local charity.
Another patient, Jeff Jensen, signed up for the program after worrying about the prospective bill for his upcoming surgery to correct nerve damage in his feet.
“There’s nothing more depressing than seeing a bill for $18-20-240,000 and going, ‘And how much of this will my insurance cover and how much is mine to cover?'” he told CBS News.
For his particular procedure, clinic staff calculated that he owes around 560 hours of volunteer work, but others are allowed to take on that “bill” for home. So far, 105 people have offered to help out.
“Of those 105, I probably knew 30 or 40 of them,” Jensen said. “Really without this program, this surgery wouldn’t have been done.”
Aguila said his clinic’s program is aimed at making medical procedures affordable for everyone, no matter what their financial situation.
“I don’t care if you’re a multi-billionaire or if you’re the guy on the street corner with a Styrofoam cup,” he said. “You get offered the same options. Why? Because it’s fair.”
“This whole practice is about restoring hope for patients by giving them the opportunity to wrest back control of their health care.”
To learn more about Aguila’s incredible program, check out the Healing Hands of Nebraska website .
h/t: CBS News
