Orangeburg hospital offering 50% discount on health care bills

ORANGEBURG, S.C. (WIS) - Regional Medical Center in Orangeburg is offering a 50 percent discount to patients with open account balances on health care bills.

The discount applies to patients and employees with outstanding medical bills more than 30 days old with RMC or any RMC physician office practice.

The offer ends on June 30, and accounts must be paid in full at the 50 percent off rate.

“We’re here because we feel like this community needs us,” Willie Brown, RMC’s Vice President of Revenue Cycle, said.

Brown said the organization understands that many people who come to rural hospitals like RMC do not seek out care unless they absolutely need to, and they oftentimes must drive a long way to access that care.

With gas prices so high, RMC felt it was important to provide relief to those who may have struggled to pay bills throughout the pandemic.

“And so this really started, kind of was birthed out of how do we help folks know that we’re here to help, we’re not just here to service them from a healthcare perspective, but we also holistically address the issues of this community,” Brown said. “And financials are one of them. People sometimes won’t come to the hospital because they know there’s a bill at the end of it, right?”

Brown believes this is also an opportunity to drive more revenue to the hospital.

“When we offer a discount, a lot of people that may not be normally be able to pay it or would not consider paying that bill would think about it and give us a call and talk to us about it,” he said. “So it really, just from a financial standpoint, it goes to our bottom line and helps us take care of some of the things we want to do strategically and also some of the things that we just have to take care of ordinarily.”

James Randall says this comes at a welcome time for him and his wife because they recently had surgeries at RMC, and the bills are rolling in.

“I think it’s a great initiative,” he said. “Everybody’s hurting now. Prices on everything are extremely high, so anytime you get an opportunity to get a discount on whatever it may be, especially medical bills with the cost of everything that’s medical now, it would be a great incentive and I’m looking forward to taking advantage of it.”

Brown says they piloted a similar program for a month last year, but this is the first time it’s been implemented on this scale.

RMC also works with DECO Recovery Management to offer financial assistance to the uninsured. All patients have to do is submit an application, and RMC handles the rest to determine Medicaid eligibility.

To take advantage of the offer, RMC says to visits its website, call 803-809-3883 or 1-800-905-5731.

If your account is already in a bad debt status, call Amcol Systems Inc. at 1-800-962-7561.

Copyright 2022 WIS. All rights reserved.

Notice a spelling or grammar error in this article? Click or tap here to report it. Please include the article’s headline.