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News 5 helps Mentor man get a ton of money knocked off medical debt

Mentor man gets help from News 5 for massive medical debt
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CLEVELAND — We have a Diagnosis: Debt update about the man from Mentor who showed us the largest bill we've seen yet in our coverage. 5 On Your Side Investigators have helped make a serious dent in that bill.

"It was $57,000 and some change,” said Dan Mascarenhas. You might remember that huge bill he told us about two weeks ago. He had surgery and there was confusion between Cleveland Clinic and his insurance policies.

"No one really had eyes on it…until you were involved,” he told us in our most recent interview.

After we had called the clinic about the hefty charges, it reacted right away.

"An hour or two after I talked to you, Cleveland Clinic called me, reversed all the collections,” said Mascarenhas.

He went on to say that he just got word about that the $57,000 bill. He now owes pretty much what he thought he would pay in the first place - about 10%.

"Even if it's $5,700, it's still better than $57,000,” said Mascarenhas. “And my son and I are probably going to buy something. I don't know what, probably a plane or something...a model plane,” he said with a laugh.

Mascarenhas told us he is still waiting on some info about his deductible that could get that final bill down to only $1,000.

We'll stay on top of it.

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