Problem Statement

Americans today are saddled with a staggering $140 billion in medical debt.   This debt, concentrated in poor and Southern communities, is the primary source of debt collections - more than collections from credit cards, utilities, auto loans, and other sources combined.  Medical debt has systemic effects on the country – exacerbating wealth inequality and preventing economic growth drivers like home buying.  It also has deeply profound impacts on those who experience it directly  – contributing to stress, increasing the risk of health issues such as high blood pressure, and impacting access to credit.

About Dollar For

Dollar For seeks to support patients dealing with medical debt by leveraging hospital Charity Care policies.  Guided by section 501(r) of the Affordable Care Act, nonprofit hospitals are required to offer a Financial Assistance Policy that provides debt forgiveness to patients under a certain income limit, as determined by the hospital. Since 2019, Dollar for has worked with patients to complete and submit over 2,600  financial assistance applications, which has led to over $16.1 million in debt forgiveness. In 2021, Dollar For secured significant online and media attention due to a viral TikTok and subsequent tweets (1/16/2021 and 9/17/2021) of the same content.  

Dollar For aims to secure $150,000,000 in total medical debt forgiveness by December 31, 2025.

Communications Goals

• Educate patients about the existence of charity care programs
• Make Dollar For synonymous with charity care
• Drive patients to the Dollar For website to get help

Target Audiences

• Low and middle income patients with a focus on communities with the highest levels of medical debt:
• Black and Hispanic households
• Households with at least one member with a disability or diagnosed major illness
• Households in states where Dollar For has seen the greatest need and in non-Medicaid expansion states.  This includes: 
• Texas
• California
• Illinois
• Georgia
• Florida
• North Carolina
• Pennsylvania

Request for Proposals

Dollar For seeks a PR firm or communications partner to help us achieve the goals above.  We have great in-house and volunteer energy to execute many parts of our marketing and communications efforts but need specific support with the following services:

• Develop a social media outreach plan that speaks to and connects authentically with our target communities listed above. If needed, Dollar For could expand the contract with a partner to include execution of this plan if it is determined that we don’t have the in-house resources to carry out the plan.  However, current proposals should only focus on the development of a plan that makes the best use of Dollar For’s existing resources and volunteer teams.
  
  
• Pitch, secure and provide prep for earned media opportunities that maximize our exposure and message to target communities.  Dollar For has many great relationships with reporters at media organizations that serve grasstops and policy-making audiences.  For this engagement, we are specifically interested in securing media placements and stories that would be seen by patients in need of our help and would specifically drive them to our services.  We would love to secure at least five impactful media stories in the next year. These could be either national or focused in thoughtfully selected local markets. If local, we would want to reach more than five markets to ensure we are serving many communities of need.
  
  
• Collaborate with Dollar For staff to develop a list of target organizations that we should seek to partner with to achieve the goals above. Dollar For is currently building the technical capabilities to allow partner organizations to market our services to their audiences/communities, provide co-branded versions of our screening tools, and report on outcomes from specific partners.  We seek advice on which organizations we should prioritize approaching in order ensure that patients of greatest need are aware of and have easy access to our services.
  
  
• Build new and use existing connections to facilitate the creation of the co-branded partnerships described above.  Our goal would be to secure 3 - 5 mutually beneficial partnerships within six months.
  
  
• Identify opportunities and help place Jared Walker, Dollar For founder, in public speaking opportunities such as conferences or other similar events that further amplify our messages.  We seek to be present at at least three large conferences this year that would drive a meaningful number of patients to use Dollar For’s services.
  
  
• Identify opportunities to educate medical, public health, patient advocacy and social work practitioners about charity care and Dollar For.  If possible, identify opportunities to provide continuing education credits to practitioners as we educate them about our services and financial assistance programs that will service their clients and patients. We would seek to have one continuing education program running within one to two years.
  

Equity Considerations

Dollar For is a white-led organization that has achieved great success in helping many patients.  However, we have only recently begun to apply an equity lens to our work by examining how we are targeting resources, messages, and service to communities where medical debt is more prevalent.

We recognize that we lack the knowledge and lived experience to thoughtfully and appropriately market our services to communities of color and immigrant communities.  We seek a PR partner who can work with us to design communications strategies that are more authentic to the needs of these patients.  We are committed to building a program that empowers all patients and helps crush medical debt – not only those who respond well to our current brand, messaging, and program. We also encourage our partner to challenge us if they see areas of our program where our practices fail to equitably serve communities of color or other patient communities impacted by medical debt.

Measuring Success

Over the next 3 years, we seek to 10X our impact.  To do this, we will need to significantly increase the number of patients who use our eligibility screener to request help.  We are also working on further program improvements that will increase our success rate for patients who do complete the screener.

Currently, approximately 580 people use our eligibility screener and are deemed eligible for help every month.  We would like to see this average monthly number at least double and ideally triple or quadruple by the close of 2023.

Contract Timeline and Budget

Dollar For seeks proposals outlining a six month partnership to begin work on the deliverables outlined above.  We anticipate that the selected firm or contractor would become a long term partner for Dollar For pending successes in the first six months of partnership.

Dollar For is in the start up phase of growth as a non-profit. While we recognize the need and cost of these services, we likely won’t have the same capacity to pay as other larger more established brands. Our budget for this will be no more than $10,000 a month.

Application Process

Please send proposals to jared@dollarfor.org and elise@dollarfor.org by Friday, June 3rd.  We will review proposals and schedule exploratory calls to discuss in early June.

See above.