Health Aid Update

Earnin’s Health Aid is designed to make a positive impact on people’s financial wellness by helping negotiate medical bills down to a more affordable cost. This spring, Health Aid passed a pretty big milestone. The feature has helped save community members more than $500,000 in medical bills through negotiated settlements, grants and improved payment plans. Earnin calculated savings by adding up the amount of potential savings Health Aid has found for community members via payment plan and lump sum settlement negotiations starting from when the product launched in early September 2019 until now. To use Health Aid, download the Earnin app here.

“This product is an excellent example of our Collaborative Control business model at work,” said Ram Palaniappan, Founder and CEO of Earnin. “In collaboration with the Earnin community, we have created a product that helps tackle what many view as one of our nation’s toughest challenges - high medical bills. We’re measuring the success of the product by how much money it’s saving people and its ability to improve quality of life and financial wellness. To date we’re very happy with the results.”

Unlike many things in the healthcare system, Earnin has tried to make Health Aid as simple as possible. All a community member needs to do is upload photos of their medical bills and enter their date of birth so we can verify their account with medical providers. Earnin only uses that information for Health Aid, and stores it in an encrypted database.

After that, a Health Aid Community Advocate will take the community member’s case and use their experience in medical billing to negotiate with bill providers and collection agencies. Their goal is to lower the amount the community member owes or structure a better payment plan; they may also search for financial aid options that apply to the community member. Health Aid will send an update on how the community member’s case is going within two business days.

After a Community Advocate has done what they can, the community member receives a report of the outcome. If the Community Advocate is able to lower the medical bill or secure a better payment plan, the community member can choose how much they would like to pay for the service, from $0 to $100. That’s all there is to it— no required fees or hidden costs.