According to media reports, In New York, a Pakistani-American doctor has sent almost 200 patients a gift during Christmas, hoping that their lives could be more comfortable and nearly half a million dollars he erased medical debt.
According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, In 1991, in Pine Bluff in the US state of Arkansas, Dr. Omar Atiq founded a cancer clinic. He sent out a notice for patients before 25 December saying that the clinic has decided to forego All balances owed to the clinic by its patients.
It was reported by the newspaper that Dr. Omar Atiq is an oncologist who got his degree of medical from Khyber Medical College in Peshawar. In February, he closed his clinic after providing cancer treatments, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy, which took him 30 years.
In ABC TV’s “Good Morning America,” it was told by Atiq in an interview that he worked with a billing company for months to collect remaining payments from patients. But gradually, he decided to stop contacting them.
According to Dr. Omar Atiq, The clinic still had a total of nearly US 650,000 dollars in inpatient bills as of December. He is also a professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock.
Atiq further said that he noticed some people are still unable to pay. So he and his wife Mehreen thought about it, and they decided to forgive all the remaining debt.
While noticing his patients, Dr. Atiq wrote that even though several health insurances are paying most of the bills for a high number of patients, he said the deductibles and co-pays can be a burden, Happy Holidays.
The president of RMC of America, Bea Cheesman, the billing company, worked with Dr.Atiq, and he that his decision to forgive all the debts of patients was a very kind gesture.
