Nonprofit wipes out more than $60 million in New Mexicans' medical debt

A nonprofit has paid off $63 million in medical debt for more than 45,000 New Mexicans.

Undue Medical Debt bulk purchases medical debt from hospitals, physician groups and collection agencies, then forgives it. New Mexicans all over the state have been getting blue letters in the mail notifying them their medical debt has been forgiven. Anonymous donors paid to purchase the debt.

“There’s nothing worse than medical debt, because it’s something you have to have,” said Lisa Tessler, a Nogal resident whose debt was forgiven by the nonprofit early this year.

In 2019, Tessler became seriously ill with a staph infection after dental work. Because she could not work, Tessler was covered by Medicaid but she still wound up with a $5,000 bill from X-ray technicians and approximately $1,000 from hospitalists.

“It doesn’t sound like a lot of money, but it is a lot of money when you don’t have any,” Tessler said.

For four years, she went to a collection agency to pay off the X-ray technician bill. But the smaller bill lingered until she got the letter from Undue Medical Debt that her hospitalist bill was paid.

“You have to have the medical work done, and then afterwards you have all these bills, and it’s just overwhelming, and to be able to have them lifted from you is amazing,” Tessler said.

As of 2020, $881 million was the total medical debt in New Mexico, and 18% of New Mexicans had their medical debt sent to collections, according to a report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The average amount owed was $2,692 that year.

The Kaiser Family Foundation found that between 2019 and 2021, an average of 9% of New Mexican adults reported having medical debt each year — similar to the national average of 8.6%.

Undue Medical Debt was founded by former debt collectors. Similar to debt collection agencies, the nonprofit purchases debt in bulk, allowing it to buy the debt for a lower cost.

The organization chooses recipients based on income or percentage of income compared to the medical debt. So, recipients have to have income that is below 400% of the federal poverty level, approximately $100,000 for a family of three, or medical debt that is more than 5% of their annual income.

“The work that we do is really important. It helps people. But it is not the solution to the system,” said Ruth Landé, vice president of provider relations. “The solution is that people need to have access to affordable health insurance.”

Landé is concerned that medical debt could rise with recent cuts to Affordable Care Act subsidies and Medicaid passed by Congress and signed into law on July 4.

The cities that most benefited from this recent round of debt relief are Las Cruces, Clovis, Albuquerque, Roswell and Hobbs.

Over $10.8 million in medical debt was forgiven for 8,100 Las Cruces residents, and $7.6 million was forgiven for 5,600 Albuquerque residents. The nonprofit forgave $7.7 million in debt for Clovis residents, over $6 million for Roswell residents and close to $4.8 million for Hobbs residents.