November 4, 2019

Fighting for Your Financial Health

Earnin is committed to our community’s well-being. That includes not just when you get paid, but your overall financial health. People already use Earnin to pay for unexpected medical bills and prescriptions, but we wanted to offer yet another way to keep your hard-earned money in your pocket. As an extension of our commitment, we are proud to offer Health Aid, a new service where the Earnin team negotiates your medical, dental, vision, and mental health bills for you, your spouse, or your dependents. Like our original product, Cash Out, Health Aid doesn’t charge fees. Instead, you and other Earnin community members can pay what you choose for using the service.

Many Americans know from experience that money and health are closely linked. Struggling to pay your bills can lead to stress, depression, and lost sleep, and health issues can cause financial hardship when they make you miss work and saddle you with high medical bills. On top of that, the current healthcare system can make those problems even worse, adding confusing payment terms, costly medical billing errors, and surprise bills that pop up even when you have insurance¹.

It’s no wonder that health-related debt is the No. 1 cause of personal bankruptcy in the U.S.² Younger Americans are being hit especially hard, with people in their late 20s three times more likely to have a medical bill sent to collections compared to people in their late 60s³.

With Health Aid, Earnin aims to give our community access to a service that can make a positive impact on their finances and potentially lower healthcare costs. To date, Health Aid has saved a total of $120,000 for the people who have used it so far. That’s an average savings of $120 per person! One community member said, “Earnin reached out to each of my medical providers and came up with reasonable payment offers which were really helpful. I would completely go through them again in the future and highly recommend them to anybody looking to get some support and help.” We can’t always guarantee success, but we can promise you we’ll fight to help lower your medical bills.

Unlike a lot of things in the healthcare system, we’ve tried to make Health Aid as simple as possible. All you need to do is upload photos of your medical bills and enter your date of birth so we can verify your account with medical providers. Earnin will only use that information for Health Aid, and we make sure to store it in an encrypted database. After that, a Health Aid Community Advocate will take up your case and use their experience in medical billing to negotiate with bill providers and collection agencies. Their goal is to lower your overall bill balance or structure a better payment plan, and they may also search for financial aid options that apply to you. You’ll get an update from them on how your case is going within two business days.

After your Community Advocate has done what they can, you’ll receive a report of the outcome. If your Community Advocate is able to save you money or secure a better payment plan for you, you can choose what to pay for the service, from $0 to $100. That’s all there is to it; no required fees or hidden costs.

We believe that everyone deserves affordable healthcare, and it’s easy to see the current U.S. system isn’t working for a lot of Americans. 41% of working-age Americans are paying off medical debt or have problems with their medical bills⁴. Medical insurance deductibles are going up⁵. As many as 80% of hospital bills contain errors⁶. As a nation we may differ on how to address the healthcare crisis, but many of us can agree that something is broken.

It’s times like these that having a community is the most important, because people who care about one another help one another. We hope that Health Aid helps our community live healthier, happier, and more debt-free lives.

To submit your bills to Health Aid, download or update the Earnin app and tap the Health Aid button, located in the “Your Toolkit” section near the bottom of the app’s home screen.Please note that you need to be an Earnin Community Member to use Health Aid. For more details, read the Earnin Terms of Service.