Two Orlando hospitals won’t bill Pulse nightclub shooting victims

Numerous vicitims were treated at Orlando Health’s Orlando Regional Medical Center, which is just a few blocks down the street from Pulse. Instead of asking Pulse patients to pay, the hospital is looking to state and federal funds, private insurance, disability insurance, Florida’s crime victim compensation program, funding sources established for individual victims, means-tested programs including Medicaid, and charity care provided by Orlando Health. “This is simply our way of paying that kindness forward”.

In total, the two hospitals are estimated to be absorbing more than $5.5 million worth of care.

The costs at Orlando Health are significantly more substantial, however, so that hospital will bill the victims’ insurance companies; whatever costs the victims’ policies don’t cover will be disregarded.

Orlando Health runs the Orlando Regional Medical Center, which is just a few streets away from the Pulse site – treating 44 survivors as well as nine victims who died in the hospital.

Pulse massacre survivor Mario Lopez, 34, who was grazed by a bullet and had fragments explode into his left side, told the Orlando Sentinel he welcomes the announcement since he is uninsured.

The attack at the popular LGBT club by gunman Omar Mateen killed 49 people and wounded dozens more.

‘We hope this gesture can add to the heart and goodwill that defines Orlando’.

Both hospitals say they will work with victims who require follow-up surgeries and treatment, according to the newspaper.

So for many victims, the waiving of their hospital bills may be a huge relief.

Florida Hospital, another hospital where 12 Pulse victims were treated, is not billing insurance companies at all, ABC News reported. “I was so anxious because I can’t afford any of that”, he said in regards to his potential $20,000 bill. The fact that shooting victims face massive medical bills in the first place is “an indictment of our society”, he says.