A Washougal woman who suffered a heart attack in August and was subsequently hit with nearly $227,000 in medical bills has had her debt erased.
RaDonna Moehnke suffered a heart attack during a medical visit in Vancouver. She was taken to PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center and was later transferred to Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, where she underwent heart surgery.
“I appreciate my surgeon,” Moehnke told The Columbian last month. “God bless his heart. He said I had one foot in the grave.”
During her recovery, she developed a serious leg infection that prolonged her hospital stay. But the real shocker came after Moehnke returned home and learned that her insurer, Seattle-based Lifewise, would cover only a portion of her medical bills.
“OHSU wasn’t in the network,” Moehnke said. “Well, excuse me. How in the hell was I supposed to know that?”
“If I would have been given the option,” she said, “I would have said, ‘Pull the plug now.’ No ifs, ands or buts about it.”
In December, Moehnke and her husband, Larry, filed a complaint with Washington Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler seeking relief from crushing medical bills that threatened to financially wipe out the couple.
“They were really terrified,” said Stephanie Marquis, a spokeswoman for Kreidler’s office. “It was something they knew would bankrupt them.”
Through the work of Dollar For, a Portland-based nonprofit organization, OHSU agreed to waive Moehnke’s outstanding medical bills.
Jared Walker, the organization’s founder, said virtually every hospital is a nonprofit and must provide charity medical care. He and others affiliated with his organization helped the Moehnkes with the necessary paperwork to get their out-of-pocket bills erased.
Walker said he started his organization earlier this decade to help families pay medical expenses after members of his family experienced their own financial woes stemming from medical care.
“When a family goes through a medical crisis, they shouldn’t have to go through a financial crisis,” he said.
Walker said he never wants to blame hospitals for situations where consumers get caught in the middle.
“The villain is the system,” he said. “We have a terrible health care system where families fall through the cracks. This is one of thousands and thousands of families that this happens to.”
The Washington Legislature, at Kreidler’s request, is considering a bill that would protect consumers from surprise charges for out-of-network medical care. The House passed the legislation, Second Substitute House Bill 1065, by a 84-13 vote on March 4. The bill is currently pending in the Senate Health and Long Term Care Committee.
Kreidler issued a statement Thursday praising the outcome of the Moehnke’s case and calling for state lawmakers to pass the legislation.
“This is a good result for a couple who, through no fault of their own, were faced with crushing debt,” Kreidler said. “No law currently protects Washington consumers from surprise medical bills.”
“Unfortunately, it took repeated inquiries from my office and others to put a spotlight on the way charges were assessed. This case, and another from Clark County, clearly illustrate the need to pass legislation in Washington.”
Marquis said her office believes Moehnke’s case is the biggest example, in terms of dollar amount, of someone being hammered by surprise medical bills, not just here in Washington but across the United States.
“They had health insurance,” Marquis said. “They did everything they should have done, yet this still happened to them. That’s pretty terrifying. It’s not someone who was uninsured and taking their chances.”
Staff writer Wyatt Stayner contributed to this report.
