Before anything else: call the hospital's billing office and ask for their financial assistance policy, then ask for an itemized bill. People routinely knock thousands off this way, and it costs a phone call. Raise money for whatever is left.
Your mother's hospital stay was covered, mostly. After the insurance paid and the hospital applied its assistance program, the remaining balance is $3,400, due in sixty days or it goes to collections.
You are not going to post that on the internet. Her neighbors are on Facebook. Her church is on Facebook. What you want is to ask the forty or so people who already know she was in the hospital, without it becoming something strangers can find.
A public page does not find donors for you.
This is the part that surprises people. Putting a campaign on a large public platform doesn't put it in front of a crowd of willing strangers — it puts it in a directory alongside everyone else's. Whoever gives is, almost always, someone you sent the link to yourself.
Which means the public part isn't doing the work. It's just making the situation permanently searchable under your mother's name.
| What you keep | 100% of every contribution. The 6.9% fee is added at checkout and paid by the contributor, not deducted from what you receive. |
| When it arrives | Standard payouts reach your bank in 2-3 business days. |
| Who sees it | Only the people you send the link to, unless you choose to make it public. Nothing is listed or searchable by default. |
Nothing to create a request. Nothing to send it. The only fee is the 6.9% a contributor pays on top of their own contribution — a $100 contribution costs the giver $106.90, and you receive $100.00.
One specific amount with a reason attached. "The balance after insurance, $3,400" asks better than "medical expenses," because the person reading it knows exactly what their hundred dollars is doing.
People who already know. The forty people who heard she was in the hospital. Family, the people she worked with, her neighbors, her congregation. You already know who they are.
Contributions start at $100. For most people being asked, that's a normal amount to give someone they care about — and thirty-four of them clears a $3,400 balance.
Keeping it out of search results. This matters more with medical than anything else. A public campaign naming a person and their diagnosis stays findable long after the bill is paid, by employers, by insurers, by anyone who types their name.
Worth doing first, in this order. Any of them can reduce what you need to raise:
