People who work in real-life emergency rooms have raved about how accurately the new drama The Pitt (Max) captures the dynamics and the medical details of their workplaces.

Here at An Arm and a Leg, we’ve been nerding out about how the show depicts the financial forces that shape the ER’s day-to-day problems like crowding, eternal wait times, and scary bills.

For this episode, we got Dr. Alex Janke, an emergency medicine doctor and health policy researcher to nerd out with us.

Here’s a transcript of this episode.

Send your stories and questions. Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG.

Of course we’d love for you to support this show.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A few months ago, we got a note from a listener named Meagan, who wanted to thank us.

She said the stories she heard on this show had given her the advice and encouragement she needed to finally win a fight against a medical bill she didn’t owe — a battle she’d been waging for more than two years.

As Meagan tells us, those two years were filled with wild twists and turns and a lot of disappointment.

We hear what kept her motivated and encouraged despite all the setbacks – and after an insurance rep pointed her to a free legal resource — the tactic that finally led to a breakthrough.

Here’s a resource we mention — with a spoiler alert: It’s the sample cease-and-desist letter that a lawyer shared with Meagan.

We’ll break down the details — how a letter like this could work, in certain situations — in a future First Aid Kit newsletter.

Here’s a transcript of this episode.

Send your stories and questions. Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG.

Of course we’d love for you to support this show.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A federal agency called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — CFPB for short — has taken big steps to help people with medical debt. In early February, the Trump administration moved to effectively shutter the agency.

We talked with credit counselor Lara Ceccarelli about how the CFPB has helped clients at the nonprofit where she works, and how she’s navigating the sudden change.

And consumer-rights advocate Chi Chi Wu — an attorney with the National Consumer Law Center — describes the court battle she and her colleagues are mounting to slow down the agency’s dismantling — and where things could go from here.

We’ll track this developing story in next week’s First Aid Kit newsletter, so if you’re not signed up, this is a great time to start: www.armandalegshow.com/firstaidkit.

Here's a transcript of this episode.

Send your stories and questions. Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG.

Of course we’d love for you to support this show.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.