Medical care is not always the first thing that people consider budgeting for, and emergency situations can leave uninsured individuals with unexpected expenses. Regardless of a patient’s insurance status or ability to pay, emergency treatment is offered at Holy Cross Hospital without question, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. Holy Cross Hospital’s billing department works closely with uninsured and low-income patients to help them understand and handle these unexpected medical expenses and to help them identify financial assistance options. Along with support from the billing department, Holy Cross Hospital offers additional support programs to help be prepared for medical care as well as better understand the billing process.
The Benefit Navigation program of Holy Cross Medical Center is available to help individuals understand health insurance enrollment options and provide application assistance. This program helped over 1,000 people access health care benefits over the last year. If you need support signing up for health insurance or have questions about the system, call the Benefit Navigation program at (575) 751-8939.
To provide added support and improve our patients’ experience, Holy Cross Medical Center developed the Patient Advocacy program in 2020. Rebecca Ciletti, our Patient Advocate, helps patients navigate their entire experience from the Emergency Room and Inpatient settings to scheduling and billing. If patients have any questions, concerns, or issues about their visit at Holy Cross Medical Center, Rebecca can be reached by calling (575) 751-5866.
At the end of the year, there are often many bills that are left unpaid, and in turn, become “bad debt” for the hospital. Bad debt is a burden that nobody wants to handle, especially not during the end-of-the-year holiday season. To aid those in need, Holy Cross Hospital partnered with local churches and faith-based organizations, to initiate a medical debt relief program.
The Medical Debt Relief Fund is supported by community donations and the funds raised are used to pay off bad debt that remains at the end of the year. This program is more beneficial than just a dollar-to-dollar payoff of bad debt, for every $100 donated to the Medical Debt Relief Fund, $3,333 of bad debt is written off. In December of 2022 Holy Cross Hospital received financial donations that covered over $2,114,150 of bad debt and was able to clear unpaid bills for 1,362 local patients.
The donations for this fund come from community members and local faith institutions. In 2022 $63,424.53 was raised from these local supporters.The 2022 donors include:
- B’Nai Shalom Havurah
- Earth Journey Inc.
- Delores Endres
- Grace Fichtelberg
- First Presbyterian Church of Taos
- Timothy Long
- Neem Karoli Baba Ashram
- Open Heart Sangha Inc.
- Ashley D Pond
- El Pueblito United Methodist Church, Inc.
- Suzanne D Schutze
- St. James Episcopal Church
- Taos Mountain Sangha
- Taos Seventh Day Adventist Church
- Taos United Community Church
- Unitarian Congregation of Taos
- United Church of Angel Fire
- Unity of Taos
- Gerald Vogel
Thank you to all of the supporters, your donations have helped change the lives of individuals and families in your community. If you are interested in donating to the Medical Debt Relief fund for 2023 please reach out to LCisneros@taoshospital.org
