Bombarded with calls and letters from bill collectors, Nila Payton can’t recall precisely how she ended up owing $4,000 in medical debt to her employer, UPMC.
But she knows more than half came from a rough 2018, after she endured a difficult pregnancy, surgery to remove her gallbladder, and the treatment of her newborn in the neonatal intensive care unit for several weeks because of a medical crisis.
“I remember saying at the end of 2018, ‘I hate 2018. The only good thing about it was my baby being born,’” she said. “It was a very stressful year.”
And, she added: “The bills only made it harder.”
Though the 41-year-old mother carried UPMC health insurance through her job as an administrative assistant in pathology at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital, and co-insurance through Medicaid that UPMC recommended, the bills from 2018 arrived on top of bills from prior years and grew with more recent bills.
That resulted in her debt going to the dreaded bill collector, who called her several times a week on her cell and work phones, causing her more stress, even though UPMC said its policy bans collectors from making more than one call a week.
“It just breaks my heart knowing that we are basically starving for UPMC when it comes to our health care,” said Ms. Payton, who is not alone in that view.
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