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Four in 10 privately insured patients faced surprise medical bills after visiting emergency rooms or getting admitted to hospitals in 2016, according to a new study published Monday in the American Medical Association's internal medicine journal. The average price tag for a surprise bill related to care at an emergency department was $628 in 2016, up from $220 in 2010, according to the study. The average surprise bill for inpatient admissions increased from $804 in 2010 to $2,040 in 2016. (Hellmann, 8/12)

Surprise out-of-network billing and related patients' costs are increasing among inpatient admissions and emergency department visits to in-network hospitals, according to a study published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine. Stanford University researchers found that from 2010 through 2016, 39% of 13.6 million trips to the ED at an in-network hospital by privately insured patients resulted in an out-of-network bill. That figure increased during the study period from about a third of ED visits nationwide in 2010 to 42.8% in 2016. (Livingston, 8/12)

Craig Antico and Jerry Ashton, founders of RIP Medical Debt, decided to use their expertise to forgive medical debt instead of collecting it. So far, their company has abolished hundreds of millions of dollars in debt. They want to reach a billion by 2020. (Young, 8/12)