Providers in Texas and North Carolina are among those who have joined with financial services companies to issue credit cards to pay for medical expenses, such as Citibank’s Citi Health Card, reports The Boston Globe. Patients who agree to pay down the debt quickly aren’t charged interest, but those who can’t make the payments incur interest charges in excess of 20%. Tenet Healthcare Corporation is trying a different tack in offering employees with medical debt a line of credit to pay it off. Copayments are also automatically deducted from employees’ paychecks. Yet a recent survey by the Access Project and Demos found that many lower-income consumers who carry medical debt on credit cards fall even deeper into debt because of high interest rates. “The healthcare safety net is made of plastic--it’s called ‘credit cards’ for many people,” Mark Rukavina, director of Access Project, told the Globe. “It’s a pretty frightening prospect.”
