SUNY Downstate: The Hospital You Can Apply to by Email

Why the email route matters

Almost every barrier in hospital financial assistance is friction rather than eligibility. An application that requires a trip to a billing office during working hours, from someone who cannot take the time off, is an application that does not get filed.

Downstate publishes a fillable uniform application and accepts it by email with documentation attached, using Charity Care Application as the subject line. That removes the trip.

Two practical notes on using it well:

Send everything at once. Proof of income, proof of household size, and the bill. An application that arrives incomplete restarts the clock in practice even where it does not on paper.

Keep the sent message. The date you submitted is what matters in any later dispute, and an email has that date built in. Screenshot the sent item.

What to send

What Downstate serves, and why it matters here

University Hospital at Downstate sits in East Flatbush, alongside the public hospital system, in a part of Brooklyn where the uninsured rate and the under-enrollment rate are both high. Getting care in Flatbush and East Flatbush.

That context produces the same first question as everywhere: a self-pay balance usually means a coverage screening did not happen, not that no program applied.

“Was I screened for coverage for the date of service, and was I screened for Emergency Medicaid?”

Emergency Medicaid covers treatment of an emergency condition, including childbirth, for people who meet the Medicaid income rules but not the immigration rules. It is arranged at the hospital, usually after the care. The full procedure.

The floor that applies regardless

• At or below 200% of the federal poverty level: nothing out of pocket for medically necessary care
• 201% to 300%: no more than 10% of the Medicaid rate; 301% to 400%: no more than 20%
• No asset test, immigration status may not be considered, written decision in 30 days, no lawsuit below 400%, payment plans capped at 5% of monthly income and 2% interest, 180 days before collections
• Applications accepted at any stage, including after an account goes to a collection agency

Anything less than this, whatever a policy document says, is worth citing the October 20, 2024 amendment over, and escalating to the Attorney General’s Health Care Bureau Helpline at 800-428-9071.