How Katelyn survived COVID—without going bankrupt. (Not easy. She has tips.)

An Arm and a Leg

Society & Culture, Medicine, Health, Health & Fitness, Documentary

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2020

⏱️ 22 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In early April, Katelyn was in a financial bind: Home sick with COVID, she hadn't been paid in weeks. And bills were due. "My landlord is kinda beating down my door right now," she said in a voicemail to our hotline.

Weeks later, Katelyn got back in touch: She had made it through, thanks to a combination of playing hardball with one company and knowing how to play nice with others.

Because of her job, she had an insider's understanding of the playing-nice process: Katelyn works in collections for a financial institution, so she knew how to ask for help. Even so, she didn't find the process easy.

She came out of the ordeal with a heck of a story, and hard-won tips for all of us.

In addition, here are a couple of resources mentioned in this story:

A collection of tips on dealing with medical bills and collection agencies, from one of our favorite teachers: TikTok mom Shaunna Burns.
Hello Landlord is a free online tool that automatically generates letters you can send to your landlord, asserting your legal rights. (Right now, those rights may include some federal protections avainst evictions.)

You can call and leave us a message too: (724) 267-6534 — that's 724 ARM N LEG

Or share stories at https://armandalegshow.com/contact/

Thanks to everybody who supports our work! Join 'em here: https://www.patreon.com/armandalegshow

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I got a message on the arm and a leg hotline right after we started this season, season 19,
0:05.0	named for COVID-19.
0:06.9	The message came from a woman in Florida who said she was COVID positive and it sounded like
0:11.9	she was in trouble. She had passed the worst without checking into a hospital, but it was scary.
0:17.0	I was able to, I'm so sorry, I was able to kind of battle it through at home on my own, but at one point I was afraid I was going to die in bed alone in my apartment because I was
0:33.0	was allowed to come over and take care of me.
0:35.8	I was afraid I was going to die and that I wouldn't have the energy to call 911
0:39.7	if it got that bad.
0:41.1	Even now that the worst was over physically, she had another problem on her hands. Being sick meant missing weeks of work and pay.
0:49.2	So as of right now, I'm in a financial bind and I'm stuck. My landlord is kind of beaten down my door every day, trying to get me to pay rent, and my short-term disability isn't going to be approved until I can go see a physician in person, which I can't
1:06.6	do because of quarantine.
1:10.8	And on top of all of that, I just got a phone call from a hospital that I stayed in over a year ago.
1:17.6	It would last January.
1:18.8	And they're not covering any of it.
1:21.9	So I owe over $2,000 for that
1:25.1	that they told me about now
1:26.4	and they're making daily collections calls
1:28.8	even though I told them about my financial situation.
1:32.2	I hope my short-term disability gets approved, but if it doesn't, I don't
1:36.4	know what I'm going to do. And honestly, I didn't know what to do. Like, I didn't know what
1:41.4	resources I could point Caitlin to.
1:43.0	A few weeks later I found a couple things I thought might help and I sent her a message.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from An Arm and a Leg, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of An Arm and a Leg and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.