The Indisputable Wisdom of Crowdfunding Medical Expenses

The Indisputable Wisdom of Crowdfunding Medical Expenses



By Tatyana Kapkan, a guest contributor for CrowdClan and an Online Marketing Expert for FundRazr, Canada’s largest crowdfunding platform
with deep social media integration. She is passionate about
crowdfunding and coaching customers to help their fundraising campaigns
succeed.


In the U.S., the land that lags behind its First-World peers in
health care by virtually all standards, including cost, Americans often
need to dig into their own pockets to fund what’s an undeniable human
right.


A full 37 percent of them actually chose to sidestep a doctor’s visit
or neglected to fill prescriptions in the past year because they
couldn’t cover the cost, says the same research, which derives from an international survey
released in late 2013 by the Commonwealth Fund. And a 2011 study by the
National Bureau of Economic Research reports that half of American
adults couldn’t come up with two grand if suddenly faced with a medical
emergency.


But life regularly delivers unfortunate blows to the fragile human
condition, and those blows frequently arrive in the company of a bill.


Take the average cancer patient in the States, whose out-of-pocket
medical expenses, even with health insurance, average $712 per month
(according to Dr. Yousuf Zafar, who conducts research on cancer patients’ medical bills for the Duke University Health System in Durham, NC). It’s no wonder a 2012 American Journal of Medicine study found that 62 percent of all bankruptcies filed in 2007 were tied to medical expenses.


Enter crowdfunding. A booming niche in the U.S. economy, this tool
for raising money through mass electronic appeal has every bit the
viability for folks facing unexpected health-care expenses as it does
for those funding avant-garde film projects and fledgling inventions.


All a person needs to launch a crowdfunding initiative is access to a professional hosting platform, like FundRazr. They oversee the campaign, its dissemination among other social media vehicles and the collection of money. Easy peasy.