Medical bill payment solution: Patient mortgages

March 31 01:00 2016 by ushadmin

The prices of specialized healthcare services continue to skyrocket and some policy experts have suggested a new payment alternative for patients: Mortgages.

A prominent Harvard oncologist and an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have suggested that nearly decade-long loans for patients may be a way to pay for some of the more expensive treatments such as drugs to cure Hepatitis C, Kaiser Health News reported.

Andrew Lo of MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and David Weinstock, M.D., of the Harvard-affiliated Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, have suggested nine-year loans at 9 percent interest rates–about five interest points higher than current mortgage rates–may be a way to finance pricey specialty care, such as an $84,000 regimen of Sovaldi. The patient would not be obligated to repay the loan if the treatment fails.