From Crisis to Compassion: Exploring the Impact of Medical Crowdfunding

Medical crowdfunding facilitates access to the healthcare services for people in need, helps to finance medical equipment or fund private businesses. The continuous demand for medical-related products and services opens doors for medical crowdfunding platforms worldwide.

According to the research of “Success Factors of Medical Crowdfunding Campaigns”, the usage of online medical crowdfunding platforms is expected to grow by 25% annually. Statistics show that approximately 8 million Americans launched a crowdfunding campaign to manage their medical expenses, and over 50 million reported that they contributed to a health-related campaign.

Medical crowdfunding is predominantly donation-based and used to raise money to cover many medical needs such as disease treatment, hospital expenses, post-operative care, homecare needs, and support for purchasing medicines, among others. It also demonstrates how people try to solve the problems in the national health systems or inadequate public health funding. 

For example, many health needs that are not covered by national medical insurance are reflected in medical crowdfunding campaigns, and the lower the national insurance coverage, the more crowdfunding projects there are. 

A quick overview of a couple of crowdfunding platforms for medical purposes will help to understand better how these platforms work, what kind of projects they host, and how all the processes are managed.

Debt.org

Debt.org is one of the few medical debt crowdfunding platforms among a variety of donation-based counterparties. The platform caters to the needs of the US citizens and offers plans to cover:

• Unexpected medical expenses: emergency room and urgent care, hospital and surgery costs, crowdfunding for medical bills, and doctor visit expenses.
• Expenses for senior citizens: assisted living and nursery home costs, hospice costs.
• Supplementary insurance costs: Medicare, Medicaid, ObamaCare.

To apply for a loan, one shall fill in a form, indicate the sum that he needs, and further, the resource takes care of the process.

On the platform, one can also find valuable information on how to consolidate medical debt and where to get medical help for free or at a reduced cost.

RupeeCircle

RupeeCircle is a P2P lending platform that allows borrowers to get loans for medical expenses at attractive interest rates. The loans are issued based on the borrowers’ requirements and repayments are spread over long periods to ensure easy repayment.

There are no prepayment charges. 

RupeeCircle helps to get funding for surgery, nursing, physical therapy, and other forms of treatment and healthcare. It makes the platform a go-to solution to find funding for medical expenses.

To apply for a loan, one needs to register on the platform as a borrower for medical lending and submit an application for a loan. After that, the RupeeCircle team assesses the application and decides whether it is possible to issue a loan under the specified requirements. 

Once the loan application is approved, the loan is listed on the platform’s marketplace. Investors have 14 days to fund it. When the loan requirements are met, the borrower signs an agreement with investors, and the loan is disbursed. 

The platform takes up to 5% of the loan sum (the exact value depends on the risk grade) or Rs 1500 – whatever is higher, as a processing fee. The fee is discounted from the sum to disburse automatically.

Normally, the entire process takes 5-7 days. 

To be eligible for a loan, one must comply with the following requirements:

• Be an Indian resident
• Be at least 21 years old
• Have a valid government-issued ID proof (PAN card, Aadhar card, passport)
• Have a valid Indian bank account
• Have proof of salary or be self-employed.

and to submit additionally such documents as:

• Residence address proof (an electricity or utility bill)
• Contact proof (mobile or landline bills)
• Proof of income (Last 3-year personal ITR or Income Tax Declaration, last 3 months’ salary slips)
• Bank details (canceled cheque, bank statements for the last 6 months).

RedCrow

RedCrow is an equity-based platform specializing in crowdfunding for healthcare projects. The platform helps with crowdfunding medical devices, life-saving products, cutting-edge technologies development, testing, and introduction by contributing to the improvement of healthcare delivery. 

The platform was launched in 2016 by Brian Smith, a former Morgan Stanley financial advisor. The idea was to make healthcare investing fast and efficient. 

Along with project owners and investors, all healthcare enthusiasts and advisors are welcome to contribute to the platform development by participating in surveys or otherwise contributing to healthcare innovation and development.

The platform charges a 7% fee from the funds raised. It is available for companies and investors that comply with the US regulation requirements.

GoFundHealth

GoFundHealth is a medical crowdfunding platform that provides all the necessary tools and resources to cover medical costs and other healthcare expenses. 

While there are a lot of platforms out there that help raise funds for multiple types of projects, GoFundHealth focuses exclusively on crowdfunding for medical expenses. It is built by people who clearly understand the burden that health-related issues can place on a person. This is why the platform commits to helping patients and their relatives to raise as much as possible to cover their medical needs. 

This is a keep-it-all platform, so even if the fundraiser doesn’t reach the funding goal, he keeps the money. If the goal is reached before the campaign ends, the fundraiser can continue to receive additional donations until the deadline. The total raised amount is normally received within 7 days after the campaign ends but it is possible to claim funds while the campaign is on.

The platform charges a 3.95% fee from the funds raised, with a 1.95% payment processing fee being already included in this percentage. No fees are charged for donating. 

At the moment, funding is possible only in Ghana Cedi but the platform works to enable donations in other currencies such as USD, EUR, and GBP. Anybody can raise funds or donate independently on location.

How to Create a Medical Crowdfunding Platform with LenderKit 

The demand for medical crowdfunding is growing, and this is why launching a platform focusing on this sector may be a reasonable strategic decision. However, developing a medical crowdfunding platform from scratch is a complex task that requires a lot of time and resources. 

Here is where white-label crowdfunding software from LenderKit comes to help. You can launch a debt, equity or donation crowdfunding platform and facilitate your local community or onboarding investors and projects internationally.

Our investment solution comes with a readily available set of tools and features to enable you to get started quickly and scale as you grow. 

To see how the product works, feel free to request a free demo.