Anna Harris’s Patient Playbook
Hospital Billing
A total tells you what you owe. An itemized bill tells you what you were charged for. Her script for getting the one they don’t send by default.
Demand the Itemized Bill — “with CPT codes”
A total isn’t an itemized bill. Call billing and say the exact words: “I am requesting an itemized bill with CPT codes.” It’s your right under HIPAA, no reason required — and most bills contain at least one error you can’t catch on a total you can’t read.
The ER Bill at Discharge — Charity Care & Dollar For
Her most-viral guide — over 650,000 likes: a man too scared of the cost to go to the ER, handed a bill before he was even discharged — $5,417 “discounted” to $3,250. Her advice: if you’re handed a bill in the ER before discharge, don’t pay it — know your rights and apply for charity care through dollarfor.org, a free service that does the whole application for you. She says the hospital makes that application confusing on purpose — and that it just happened to her when she took her son to the ER. Dollar For publicly thanked her for the post.
Instagram · Dollar For’s thank-you · Dollar For in Market Actors →
The Survivor Billing Toolkit — “The exam is free. Here’s how to fight the rest of the bill.”
If you’re a survivor of sexual assault or sexual violence and you got a medical bill: “Do not pay it.” Anna built a free, state-by-state guide. It starts with your federal rights and the rights you have in every state. Then you pick your state and it filters what’s free, who pays for what, the phone numbers to call, victim compensation for everything else, state deadlines, and reimbursement limits — with the steps in order.
It also writes the letters for you: disputing the bill, requesting an itemized bill, stopping collections — and asking that bills go to a safe address. If collections won't stop, its steps end with escalating to the state attorney general. “I cannot believe I had to create it in the first place.” As she told Dr. Julie Militello: “A lot of the time it is calling and asking them to handle these bills. But the fact that you have to do that at all…”
Her first step, in the ER: ask for a SANE nurse (Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner). Federal law makes the forensic exam free — but “free” only covers the kit.
The toolkit link is delivered by email through a short form, and the toolkit itself carries a content note and a quick-exit button.
Need support right now? RAINN: 1-800-656-4673 or online.rainn.org
Get the Survivor Billing Toolkit · How to use it · Calling every state · Every envelope · What “free” leaves out · On the toolkit, with Dr. Julie · “A bill for being a victim” · The full crossover →
How She Built It: She Called Every State
“I called every state to gather as much information as I could so survivors of SA can be armed with all the resources possible. NOBODY deserves to get a medical bill for their hospital visit after r*pe.”
The video is a montage of those calls to state victim-compensation programs: voicemail greetings, callbacks, staff giving her each state’s claim limit — and, in between, recorded promotions for Medicare plans, medical-alert buttons and pest control. Her on-screen caption over that stretch: “Reminder that these are lines for victims of SA.” One person’s phone calls filled in what a survivor would otherwise have to dig out alone, state by state.
“This might be the most important thing I’ve ever worked on.”
Why: Every Envelope
“Hundreds and hundreds of DMs saying, I had no idea that you could get billed for your own… And of course you didn’t. Of course you didn’t, because our healthcare system is built off of billing codes — for-profit billing codes that don’t care if it’s the worst day of your life. Dozens of other women telling me that they got bill after bill with the date of service printed on it, and that every envelope was a constant reminder of the day that they were assaulted. Because the truth is, in our system, the United States of America’s healthcare system, profit comes from the most traumatized and the sickest patients. And if the system won’t speak up for the most vulnerable, I will.”
— Anna Harris, RN
Anna Harris’s content is independently created and published by her; AbilityForge indexes it as an allied public resource. Figures are hers and her sources’ — each post is linked so you can verify it directly. Nothing here is medical or legal advice.