Jarrett's $106,000 bill was forgiven.

Jarrett was not going to let the letter from Aetna take his focus off recovering from prostate cancer. But it's not easy to take your mind off a bill for $106,000.

Six weeks after surgery to remove a tumor, Jarrett, 54, was used to getting two or more bills in the mail every day. He and his wife calmly collected them, waiting for his insurance plan to cover its share. Then the letter from Aetna arrived: the insurer was retroactively rescinding his coverage, leaving the couple on the hook for everything, including the six-figure bill for his surgery.

The hospital where Jarrett had his surgery, TriStar Centennial Medical Center in Nashville, did send him a form to apply for financial assistance. But with so many bills, even partial forgiveness would leave him and his wife deep in debt for years.

Then they caught a segment on the local news about a man whose hospital bills were forgiven through the hospital's charity care program. All nonprofit hospitals, including TriStar Centennial, are required to offer debt relief to some patients in exchange for keeping their tax-free status. Jarrett went looking for an organization that could help him do the same, found Dollar For, and filled out its short eligibility form. A Patient Advocate asked him to send over his bills and documentation for TriStar's financial assistance application.

After the application went in, the Advocate told him to expect an email decision within a couple of days. The response was nearly immediate: TriStar emailed to say his account had been closed and his debt forgiven.

"I was in disbelief," he said. "I almost came to tears." Jarrett emailed Dollar For to make sure he wasn't mistaken.

"That is absolutely what that means," the Patient Advocate told him.

More than seven months after his surgery, Jarrett remains cancer free. He still has about $20,000 in bills from other providers at TriStar, a sum Dollar For is also working to get forgiven. In the meantime, he's focused on staying healthy in his recovery, and his advice for anyone in a similar position starts there.

Once your health is under control, Jarrett says, you can focus on the bills. That's where his second piece of advice comes in: contact an organization like Dollar For that can help. It "really, really helps," he said. "You have someone who can take that burden off you."