In 2022, readers shared more than 1,000 personal stories of medical billing problems, contributing one patient at a time to an ongoing portrait of the rippling financial consequences of becoming sick or injured in the United States.
Peggy Dula’s $3,600 charge was far higher than what her two siblings were charged for their ambulance rides, though they were also in her car during a crash and were taken to the same hospital.
Peggy Dula is as surprised as she is relieved. The 55-year-old resident of St. Charles, Illinois, had been fighting a $2,700 ambulance bill for nearly a year.