CLEVELAND — Over $200 million in medical debt has been erased for nearly 300,000 MetroHealth patients.
For a second time in just months, thousands of people are getting word they're now free and clear of medical debt.
MetroHealth wasn't the first hospital system in Cleveland to do it, and it won't be the last.
"Oftentimes these debts have not been collected for quite a while; people may have forgotten they had it or thought it was relieved on its own just through, I don't know, hopes and prayers," said Cleveland City Councilman Kris Harsh.
One woman told News 5 Investigators she had more than $6,300 wiped out, and some of the debt dated back to 2017.
"There are going to be people applying for mortgages or car loans. They're going to get those because this debt wasn't there to begin with because this debt was removed," Harsh said.
Harsh brought the initiative to City Hall. The city got more than $500 million in federal pandemic relief money.
Around $1.9 million of it went to the city's nonprofit partner, RIP Medical Debt.
The nonprofit purchases debt portfolios from hospital systems and then eliminates the debt.
"MetroHealth was our most recent partner in this and they forgave something like 133 thousand unique debts," Harsh said.
People in Cleveland started getting letters from RIP Medical Debt showing which debts were cleared. Some people got more than one letter.
RIP Medical Debt will use private donations to relieve MetroHealth patients' debt outside Cleveland.
"The money that Cleveland allocated through ARPA is only used to relieve the debt for Cleveland residents earning up to 400% of the poverty level, which is 80% of all Cleveland residents anyway," Harsh said.
Harsh says the city still has about half of ARPA funds that can be spent on debt forgiveness.
More letters are expected to be mailed out.
"Yes, the first partner we had wanted to remain anonymous; they're one of the big three, and MetroHealth did the one last week, and the third partner, you can do the math, is in negotiations we're really far down the road," Harsh said.
The third rollout could happen in the next few weeks to months.
We reported last year that some people living in the city of Cleveland will soon see significant relief from their medical debts. City Council approved $1.9 million of federal money to help wipe out about $200 million in debts. Watch more in the player below:
RELATED: Cleveland City Council approves medical debt relief; here's what that means
