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Lend4Health
By Richard | August 20, 2008
ABC News
Late one night in June, after reading about the second mortgages, overtime hours and general financial hardships that families of autistic children face, a Virginia woman came up with a novel approach to help.
Tori Tuncan, a mother of two, created the blog site Lend4Health, based on the concept that if insurance companies won’t pay for some treatments perhaps an online patient community could.
Families looking for help can send Tuncan pictures, bios, references and the name of the treatment they want. Then she, via her site, acts as an intermediary for donors who wish to give small amounts or micro-loans to the cause through PayPal.
In the six weeks since Lend4Health’s launched, Tuncan has already collected and disbursed nearly $3,180 for four families. She has also gained a volunteer staffer and job inquiries from MBAs.
But what Lend4Health’s site pays for, and how the site functions, could lead it down two paths: a model to help patients pay for cutting-edge medicine or a center point for a heated debate. MORE
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