Download 2010-2011 Foundation Annual Report (PDF) - Kcbf.org

“I’m just grateful that
you were there and
that the volunteer
attorney was willing
to help me. I couldn’t
have done it on my
own. It was a scary
situation.”
— Pro Bono Services client
Kudumu fled his East African home with his family of five
hoping for a more peaceful and prosperous life in Seattle.
Kudumu has AIDS, and while AIDS treatment in the U.S. is
quite good, it is also expensive. Even with the help of local
AIDS social service providers which made numerous services,
including health insurance, available to Kudumu, he and his
family were still struggling under a significant amount of
medical debt.
Understanding health insurance coverage is challenging for
most of us, but for Kudumu and his family the challenge was
increased exponentially by the fact that English is their second
language. While Kudumu’s coverage was good, it was complex:
one insurance provider covered only a particular time period,
another covered only certain types of health care, and some
of his healthcare was hospital-based and therefore covered
through charity care. Kudumu was often told that his healthcare
was covered, yet creditors were calling and stating that
he owed quite a bit of money for the services he’d received.
He didn’t know who to believe, but the medical bills that kept
arriving at his door were frightening.
The King County Bar’s Volunteer Legal Services (VLS) program
connected Kudumu with a volunteer attorney who figured
out which insurer should have covered what, uncovered a
few mistakes made by the creditors, determined the health
services for which Kudumu was responsible, and negotiated a
payment plan that was within Kudumu and his family’s budget.
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