When there is no cash for medical bills, introduce barter

Getting sick is expensive and not everyone has the best health insurance, or even any insurance at all. There are a lot of parties who want to see that those bills get paid: the patient—unpaid bills equals added stress; the hospital or doctor—they need to receive payment for the care they give; the rest of us—unpaid bills often results in more expensive insurance policies.

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, an average visit to an emergency room costs $383. And according to the American Medical Association the average physician's office visit costs $60 But what if the patient finds them self in need of an emergency room visit or doctors visit but they don't have the financial means to pay for the services they receive with cash or through insurance? One solution would be to introduce organized bartering through a barter exchange. Often, its' not that the patient does not WANT to pay-- it's that they CAN'T. If they own a business or have a trained skill or any available resources or inventory, an option would be for their bill to be paid through an alternative currency: barter dollars through an organized barter exchange.

A professional barter exchange is a membership organization of business owners that trade their professional services, available resources or inventory and receive trade dollars (intangible but the same value as a cash dollar) which they can in turn use to acquire needed goods and services without spending cash.

As the patient provides their professional skill to any of the business members within the barter network, they earn trade dollars at their full cash retail rate and in turn can pay these trade dollars into a barter account that the doctor's office or hospital opens. If the patient builds websites, owns a restaurant where other members can dine, sells jewelry, or perhaps they own a condo on the beach that they can rent out on barter when it is not rented for cash, or have excess and aging inventory for a business they own, the patient would trade their services or resources to any member of the barter network and use the earned barter currency to pay off their medical expenses at their OWN wholesale cost of doing business. Say the healthcare bill is $1000 cash. If they own a restaurant and the cash cost to earn $1000 trade dollars is only $300 cash, this gives them not only the opportunity to work off their debt and fulfill their responsibility, but doing so at THEIR own cost of doing business(the $1000 trade dollars paid out only actually cost them $300 cash to earn)

The hospital or doctor's office can now spend the earned $1,000 trade dollars to acquire (office equipment and repair, printing, graphic art and web design/maintenance and SEO, advertising, administrative assistance, food items, batteries, linens and towels, janitorial work, handyman work, art work, furniture, gifts and jewelry for the lobby gift shop, employee perks and incentives etc )

This is a great example of taking a nationwide healthcare problem and finding a solution. Barter can be introduced after they cannot successfully receive cash payment due. The paitent as well as the hospital or doctors office, can set up a barter account through a local barter company, and the patient works it off or trades it off as they can. Gradually, that bill is going to be trimmed. In the case where the services were extensive and expensive, maybe it takes a few years. Maybe the bill is never paid in full, but it’s better than the other option— nothing at all.