Hardship Letter for When Your Medical Bills Rival the National Debt

I hope you never need to use this

Earlier this month, I achieved the dystopian version of the American Dream: I was able to make my medical debt disappear after months of stress, endless phone calls, and at least one full-blown, crying-in-anger meltdown. Part of the process included writing a hardship letter, an exercise in humility (and humiliation) that I hope to never have to do again. A hardship letter is where you tell the hospital what happened, how much you owe, and why you cannot pay their bills. Think of it as a scholarship application or an artist statement for a grant, except you are the work of art trying to justify your ongoing existence and quality of life LOL. I hate it, thanks.

I have the advantage of being a professional writer who is also friends with professional writers. I banged this out pretty quickly and then got amazing feedback from my friend Rae. But you shouldn’t have to be a professional writer to make a convincing case! And being one didn’t magically infuse me with the knowledge of what I was supposed to include in these hardship letter. I still googled samples for hours and hours until I felt confident enough I could pull this off.

I’m sharing mine in the hopes that you can save hours of Googling and self-doubt. I don’t even mind, this time around, if you copy+paste certain sentences. Get your debt to $0.00!!!! However, you’ll see that what you include in the letter is going to be oh so specific to your life that there is probably little you can outright lift from mine. I also deleted some identifying information and specific dollar amounts for privacy reasons and persistent paranoia. A sample, though, can be so so useful and I hope you find mind helpful.

If you are dealing with medical debt and do not want to pay for access, please message or email me and I will gift you a link.

Here is my hardship letter: