Growing Medical Debt and Ministries Helping to Eliminate It
Churches partner with Undue Medical Debt to alleviate their neighbors’ medical burdens.
In December, Spirit and Truth Church in Atlanta, Georgia, made a donation that cleared $1.5 million of medical debt for over 1,000 people in the Atlanta area.
Photo by Nicola Barts / Pexels
The church made the donation through an organization called Undue Medical Debt, formerly known as RIP Medical Debt. Founded in 2014 by three former debt collection executives, Undue Medical Debt has paid off over $25 billion in medical debt for nearly 15 million families in the United States.
Undue recognizes that paying off medical debts for individuals and families is not going to permanently solve the medical debt problem. Marisa Clemente, Undue’s vice-president of philanthropy, said there is currently $220 billion in medical debt impacting over 100 million people in the United States.
And they expect the problem to get worse with some of the changes to Medicaid and other health care programs coming via the One Big Beautiful Bill.
To make matters worse, many Americans say they don’t even have $500 saved in case of a medical emergency, Clemente said.
But just because they can’t solve the medical debt system, Undue is committed to alleviating the burden medical debt can have on families—and churches and other faith-based ministries are some of Undue’s strongest and longest supporters.
In Fiscal Year 2025, at least 300 churches partnered with Undue to donate more than $2 million, according to Clemente. Those gifts erased more than $200 million in medical debt. And since its inception, Clemente said the group has worked with more than 1,000 faith-based partners.
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Spirit and Truth Church says it chose to give to Undue because of its desire to “fulfill Matthew 25 and be the hands and feet of Jesus. Nothing more; nothing less.” The money came from their general living fund collected throughout the year.
“With medical debt being the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US, we encourage more churches to follow this path as it is a way to make millions of dollars in impact without having to actually have millions of dollars to spend,” a spokesperson for Spirit and Truth Church told MinistryWatch.
MinistryWatch has also reported about Peavine Baptist Church in Georgia giving nearly $25,000 to pay off medical debts in 2024.
Sometimes, churches collaborate to maximize their impact. In 2025, a group of 117 churches in the Pittsburgh Presbytery donated nearly $78,000 to Undue to erase $14 million in medical debts.
Another collaboration, Thee Alliance — a group of 34 churches in the upper Midwest region of the country — have partnered with Undue for about five years and eliminated $135 million in medical debt for 134,000 individuals.
Clemente said churches have options—they can make direct gifts to Undue, they can create fundraising campaigns, and they can restrict gifts to the state or county where they want debts to be paid.
Undue purchases and abolishes medical debt based on two criteria: either the debt is 5% or more of the family’s annual income or the family falls 400% or more below the federal poverty line.
No family or individual may apply to have their debt erased. Undue has relationships with hospitals and debt collectors from which they acquire the debts and are able to erase them for about $1 for every $100 of debt.
The patient then receives a letter in the mail letting them know their medical debt has been erased and that the mark on their credit is resolved. Clemente said that Undue receives many warm, grateful, and beautiful responses from beneficiaries.
Undue not only pays off medical debts, but is involved in policy advocacy to tackle what it sees as a health care crisis.
“People are really suffering,” Clemente said. “We want to help alleviate the immediate need and advance the fight for a better system.”
Anyone can help, Clemente emphasized. A gift as small as $10 can make a difference — it can abolish $1,000 worth of medical debt.
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