About Cobijo Health
Cobijo Health is an independent nonprofit project building a free, multilingual tool that helps low-income, uninsured, and immigrant patients get the financial help they're legally entitled to for their medical bills.
Why we exist
Every California hospital is required by law — the Hospital Fair Pricing Act — to offer free or discounted care to patients who can't afford their bills. Nonprofit hospitals must do the same under federal law (IRS §501(r)). But the help is effectively hidden: each hospital's rules sit in a separate, dense legal PDF, rarely translated and never in one place. People who qualify get sent to collections instead. Cobijo's job is to be the front door to help you're already owed.
How it works
You tell us your hospital, income, and household size. In seconds, Cobijo tells you whether you may qualify for free or discounted care at that specific hospital — with the income limit — screens you for Medi-Cal and Covered California, explains your rights if a bill is in collections, and writes you a ready-to-send request letter. It's free, it works in many languages, and it saves nothing you enter.
How we use AI (and where humans stay in charge)
AI does one job here: reading. We use large language models to read hospitals' financial-assistance policy PDFs and pull each one's eligibility rules into a clean, structured dataset — work that would otherwise take years of manual transcription. For most states the rules come straight from state law, with no model involved at all. No AI runs when you use this tool. Your result is computed by published rules, and your benefit eligibility by open-source public-benefit rules (PolicyEngine). Every AI-read number is stored with the document it came from and its effective date. Only the hospital can approve your assistance.
Where our information comes from
- California's official hospital financial-assistance policy registry (HCAI)
- California's Hospital Fair Pricing Act (Health & Safety Code §127400 et seq.)
- Federal charity-care requirements for nonprofit hospitals (IRS §501(r))
- Medi-Cal and Covered California eligibility rules (via PolicyEngine)
Everything Cobijo builds — the dataset and the tools — is open-source and open-data, so anyone can check our work or build on it.
Who's behind it
Cobijo Health was founded by Ian Duncan, who builds the product end to end. We're seeking fiscal sponsorship by an established 501(c)(3), and building an advisory group — a nonprofit or health attorney, a healthcare-access expert, and people with lived experience of medical debt. If you'd like to help, we'd love to hear from you.
Get involved
Cobijo Health is early, open, and built in the open. There are three ways to help — all real, none requiring money.
Join our founding board
We're looking for advisors and volunteer reviewers: a nonprofit or health attorney, a healthcare-access expert, someone who can check a state's charity-care rules once a year, and people with lived experience of medical debt. A few hours a year, real impact. Email us.
Volunteer or partner
We especially need native speakers to review our translations — we serve 10 languages, currently machine-assisted. We'd also love to hear from clinics, legal-aid groups, and community organizations who reach the patients we're built for. Email us.
Support the open work
The tool is free and open-source, and we're publishing the dataset state by state. Star or contribute to the project on GitHub — it's a genuine public good, and every bit of visibility helps patients find it.
Cobijo Health gives you information, not legal, medical, financial, or tax advice. Results are estimates based on what you enter and public hospital policies — they are not a decision or a guarantee. Only the hospital can decide if you qualify. Cobijo is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of any hospital.