As healthcare costs continue to rise, some people are focusing on finding grants to pay their bills. Availability of grants depends on many factors, including the purpose of the grant, or where you live, for example.
Beyond straight grants, some organizations have additional services for patients and caregivers, such as financial advice or medication assistance. Setting aside for the moment the question of whether skyrocketing costs are a fundamental feature of our healthcare system, here are some resources.
Patient Advocate Foundation has a case management program that says it will help as a patient advocate. Conditions apply.
The National Association for Medication Access and Patient Advocacy says it will try to gain access to medications for people in need. For people who need medications, a search for a patient assistance program might also help. Google “patient assistance program” “your medication.”
The PAN Foundation has information on funds for specific illnesses and conditions.
Infertility treatment grants and scholarships are listed by Resolve, the national organization for those with infertility.
Time wrote a piece recently about Janet Kerrigan, 68, a former critical care nurse from Myrtle Beach, S.C., who has multiple myeloma. “Over the years, Kerrigan has gotten grants, averaging $11,000 each, from the PAN Foundation, the HealthWell Foundation, and the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. She’s also gotten financial help from Revlimid’s manufacturer,” Time wrote.
There are also other organizations like Susan G. Komen for the Cure (for breast cancer), IAmAls (for ALS) and other condition- or disease-specific organizations too numerous to name. Some have resources for caregivers, financial counseling and other aid for patients and their families.
Patient groups
Rebel Health is a book from Susannah Fox, a longtime healthcare expert and former Chief Technology Officer of the White House Office for Science and Technology Policy. She’s an expert in all things peer-to-peer health, where patients (or, as we like to call them, PEOPLE) compare notes and find solutions. We have seen and heard many success stories from peer-to-peer health — while again, we note that you should do your homework and analyze information carefully.
Fox lists a wealth of resources on a page called Patient-Led Innovation. It’s an incredibly thorough list of patient resources.
Here’s a sampling:
- IBDRelief is a patient-led digital health care agency focused on inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s disease and colitis: https://www.ibdrelief.com
- iConquerMS is a patient-led research initiative focused on multiple sclerosis: https://www.iconquerms.org
- Ilant Health is a patient-led company bringing value-based care to obesity and cardiometabolic treatment: https://www.ilanthealth.com/
- Imerman Angels, founded by a cancer survivor, matches cancer fighters (their term), survivors, and caregivers with peer mentors: https://imermanangels.org/
Don’t miss the online resources like Facebook pages or Reddit communities where people can compare notes with patients and seek solutions, and possibly even find grants. These pages and organizations can be good, better and best — the landscape changes all the time, with the devotion of time and resources depending on funding, governance, administrators or moderators, and so on.
If you know others who have the same issue you do, ask them or Google around to see who’s the most up-to-date and reliable. We do not give medical advice, and some of these patient communities are more reliable than others. Do your homework and analyze information carefully.
Abortion funding
Here is a list of state-based abortion funds.
Here are some local and special-interest organizations. Some are general reproductive justice funds, and some offer abortion aid.
- Surge Reproductive Justice
- Indigenous Women Rising
- Shero Mississippi
- The Afiya Center
- Bold Futures – NM
- Our Justice – MN
- Holler Health Justice – Appalachia
- Illinois Caucus for Adolescent Health (ICAH) – IL
- AVOW Texas – TX
- Jane’s Due Process – TX
- New Voices for Reproductive Justice – OH and PA
- National Network of Abortion Funds
- Fund Texas Choice
- Women Help Women
- Women on Waves
Patient assistance programs
While not strictly a grant, drug companies run “patient assistance programs” giving access at reduced costs to some drugs. These are run by foundations or nonprofits (the Johnson & Johnson Patient Assistance Foundation, the Merck Patient Assistance Program Inc., for example) that have programs reducing out-of-pocket payments for patients, sometimes by a lot.
To find them: Google “patient assistance program” and the name of the drug. They can be hard to access, and many have restrictions. (Quite often, anyone on Medicare, Medicaid or Tricare, for members of the military, cannot use these programs.)
Also, the drug companies use these as a fig leaf: “Oh, we have patient assistance programs to help those in true need.” But the companies also use spending from these programs as a tax writeoff — inflating the drug prices, then giving a “patient assistance coupon” for a discount to the patient, and taking a hefty writeoff from the wildly inflated sticker price.
