Beshear launches Kentucky medical debt relief program

How the program works

Gov. Andy Beshear signed an executive order on Sept. 15 establishing the Team Kentucky Medical Debt Relief Program. The initiative directs to Undue Medical Debt, a national nonprofit that buys qualifying debt from participating hospitals and collection agencies and then cancels it.

Kentucky estimates that the arrangement can eliminate about in medical debt for each spent. Once fully implemented, the program is expected to erase approximately owed by more than 130,000 Kentucky residents.

Residents cannot apply or ask to participate. Instead, participating health care providers and collection agencies identify qualifying accounts. A recipient must live in Kentucky and either owe medical bills equal to at least 5% of annual income or have income at or below 400% of the federal poverty level. The governor’s office placed that income threshold at about a year for a family of three.

First notices going out

The program’s first phase has eliminated more than in debt for over 46,000 Kentuckians. Letters notifying those residents are scheduled to begin arriving the week after the order was signed.

Each notice will come from Team Kentucky and Undue Medical Debt and will identify the canceled debt and the creditor connected to it. Recipients do not need to take further action, although the state recommends keeping the letter for their records.

Beshear said the program is intended to help people facing high costs after serious accidents, cancer diagnoses and other medical events. Undue Medical Debt has eliminated more than billion in medical debt nationwide, the governor’s office said.