Doctor Clears Debt for 200 Cancer Patients
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In this article, AARP asks: If you are diagnosed with cancer, which expert should you see first - a medical specialist or a money manager? It breaks my heart that people have to worry about getting healthy without bankrupting their families.
Dr. Omar Atiq, an oncologist in Arkansas, saw that stress coupled with the difficult times created by the COVID-19 pandemic and decided to do something to make his patients lives a little bit easier . According to Arkansas Online, Atiq retired earlier this year and at the time he had 200 patients with outstanding balances that totaled about $650,000.
For his 200 former patients, he wiped out their medical debt. A total of $650,000.
He sent them a holiday card letting them know, writing: The clinic has decided to forego all balances owed to the clinic by its patients. They re like our extended family. There s no biggest honor, there s no higher honor than to serve as a physician, said Atiq. And if I have been blessed to be able to help a little then I m glad for it.
Doctor Atiq, a father of four, has been a physician for 30 years.
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“You see patients who are just not able to pay. So there are sick people, especially with cancer, and then in the COVID pandemic where people have lost jobs… who are doing all sorts of stuff just to survive,” Atiq, 60, told TODAY.
“For them to have this additional burden, it occurred to us that we were blessed to be able to do this.”
He made the announcement in holiday cards mailed to his patients in December.
This holiday card announced the gesture to patients.
Courtesy Dr. Omar Atiq
“The Arkansas Cancer Clinic was proud to have you as a patient. Although various health insurances pay most of the bills for majority of patients, even the deductibles and co-pays can be burdensome,” the card read.