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A few years ago, Tim McCoy, La Grande, was surprised to find out he had broken his hip. "I thought it was a sprain," he recalls, noting he has a pretty high tolerance for pain. "I walked around on it for a couple days thinking I could work it out, but it wasn't getting better."

When he wound up in the ER at Grande Ronde Hospital (GRH), x-rays confirmed his hip was indeed broken. The doctor encouraged him to consider having it replaced, but Tim was worried how he would pay for it. "If I did it, I knew I wanted Dr. [Ben] Olson to do it—he has a good reputation. I was worried about the cost, but it was pretty messed up and needed to be done, so I said—let's light this candle! I had no idea how I was going to pay for it," he admits.

One of Tim's friends was working at GRH at the time and encouraged him to look into the Hospital's financial assistance program. Tim worked with one of our financial counselors to complete all the paperwork, which made the process very easy for him.

"I didn't expect anything, and they ended up paying for the whole thing," he says.

The GRH mission states that all patients in need of our services will have access to necessary medical care. As an independent and locally controlled health system, the decisions on how to fulfill that mission are made by the people who live, work and play here. Because of this, GRH has been able to build a financial assistance program that ensures our patients receive care regardless of ability to pay.

Hands-on help for patients

In 2013, Karli Wright, Director of Business Services, tapped Teresa Leddon-Minch from the Hospital's Billing Department to become the first Patient Financial Counselor. Today there are five. Teresa Leddon-Minch is located in the Hospital; Susan Lambert and Mariah Scates are at the GRH Pavilion; Kim Kennicott is located in the Regional Medical Clinic; and Dena Huff is in the Regional Medical Plaza.

Then two years ago Carrie Laurence, also from the Billing Department, was asked to coordinate and work with the Counselors, as well as the patient account specialists in the Billing Department, as the Patient Financial Services Manager.

"When Karli offered me this position, she also asked me to develop some goals for the program. The first thing I wanted to look at was how to bring our receivables down. We have an incredibly generous financial assistance program here—there is no reason our patients should struggle to pay their bill given all the options and programs available here," says Carrie.

When compared to other health care systems, even larger health systems, Carrie says the GRH financial assistance program has more options for people faced with paying medical bills. Counselors work with patients from a solutions-oriented position. Their proactive approach has produced good results in two years. "Nobody wants to owe us money. What we have found out is that most people who owe money for their care are relieved to hear about the options we offer to help them pay it off," Carrie says.

Options include helping people determine if they qualify for the Oregon Health Plan or some other type of insurance, working out a payment plan, and applying for GRH financial assistance. The application process has specific requirements and supporting documents are necessary to determine qualification, but each counselor is trained and experienced in helping people gather the necessary information and complete the application.

"People still do not realize that our leadership has set aside funding specifically for those who really need it. Under the financial assistance program, we can offer anywhere from a 10% to 100% discount off those bills depending on their financial status. Most think they will not qualify, but even if they only qualify for 10% or a reduced payment plan—that's a first step in getting a plan together and working with them. We don't want to be bill collectors—we want to help," Carrie explains.

Taking care of one another

Benson Orrekum came to La Grande from Palau to attend college. Within a few years, he had decided to stay and others from his family joined him. One of those was his mother. It was her medical bills that drove Benson to seek assistance for her.

"I am only telling my experience, but I am an advocate for this hospital. Help like this program builds trust and the feeling of belonging to a community. I believe we are only as strong as the community we belong to. We have to take care of each other," Benson says.

The financial help he was able to get his mother was a "huge financial relief," and he has tried whenever possible to pass that help on by paying it forward.

Benson thinks there are three reasons people do not apply: they don't have enough information, they assume the application process is too complicated or they think they can handle it on their own. He hopes his message that financial help is available to all GRH patients—whether it ends up being a little or a lot—will get to those who need to hear it most. And they will decide to trust their financial care to the same people they trust with their health care and take advantage of all the opportunities available.

Those opportunities are enhanced by a thriving, local collaboration for improving the business and financial services piece of patient care. It includes state, local and private agencies. Jorge Martinez is the Regional Outreach Coordinator for the Oregon Health Authority. He travels from Salem once a month to GRH to meet with our counselors and other members of the community in a collaborative effort to put patient financial care options at the center of their efforts.

"This group exemplifies what working together can do to resolve issues. I travel all over the Northeast Oregon region, and this group is unique. They set the standard for how every resource collaboration should work," he says.

GRH has always been a health care industry leader, and financial care is no different. Our Financial Services Program has elevated our patient's financial care to complement the quality health care we provide.

Our patient financial stories highlight not only the effort our counselors make to help people with their GRH bills, but how helpful and knowledgeable they are about what help is available from our community partners and other institutions. They are also experts in helping patients discover what their current insurance plans cover, get provider service estimates, sign up for insurance under the Oregon Health Plan, explore options in the Oregon Health Insurance Marketplace and keep up on what local community partners have available.

Reaching out

Connie Currie's financial story began after a trip to the ER where the doctor told her she had experienced a heart attack.

"At first I didn't believe it! It wasn't like anything you think a heart attack would be like," Connie recalls. Connie felt pain on her left side while she was working in her garden, but thought little of it until she began to have trouble breathing. After a couple of days, Connie, who lives in Baker City, told her husband he needed to drive her to the ER in La Grande.

"I love Grande Ronde Hospital. It's my hospital," Connie says. "I won't go anywhere else if I don't absolutely have to."

So they drove the 45 minutes to La Grande, but once they checked in and the staff whisked her straight into the ER to start tests, Connie says she was shocked to find out she'd had a heart attack.

"Dr. [Lew] Baynes told me I had suffered a heart attack and that it wasn't able to pump the fluid that was building up in my lungs. He wanted to fly me out to the hospital in Boise, but all I could think about was how expensive a flight like that would be. We live on our Social Security. So I said, 'no, I'm not going to do that,'" she recalls.

"And that was when Teresa came to see me. I don't know who told her to—maybe the doctor. Anyway, she contacted Life Flight to find out what their financial assistance program could do. She came back with a number and a plan from them that I could live with, so I agreed to go," Connie says.

A few months later, after she was better, Connie met with Teresa about the hospital bill.

"Even that was easy. I just took her the statements and financial information she asked for and she did all the work. It's so easy—it was all just stuff we already had—I just had to gather it up for her," she says. "Teresa took care of everything for us."