Featured photograph: Downtown Pine Bluff, Arkansas, where Atiq's clinic served patients. Location context; the clinic is not shown. Photo: Brandonrush. CC0 via Wikimedia Commons.
When Dr. Omar Atiq closed his cancer clinic, he faced a choice about the unpaid bills left behind. He decided to stop collecting them.
In 2020, the Arkansas oncologist forgave about $650,000 owed to his practice. Around Christmas, about 200 former patients received a notice explaining that the clinic would no longer seek their remaining balances.
It was relief attached to a very specific burden: money owed to the Arkansas Cancer Clinic, rather than a promise to erase every bill a patient might have elsewhere.
A practice closes, but the bills remain
Atiq had served Pine Bluff for nearly three decades before closing the clinic in March 2020.
In an interview with ABC News, he described working with a billing company after the closure. Over time, he recognized that some patients simply could not afford what they owed.
He and his wife, Mehreen, considered the family's position and decided they could let the balances go.
Cancer had already disrupted his patients' lives. Asking them to keep worrying about payments was something he could choose to change.
Photo: Rodhullandemu. CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons. Reduced-resolution version.
A holiday notice brought an answer
The message told former patients that the clinic was forgoing their outstanding balances. They would not need to keep paying the practice.
Atiq explained to ABC that he had long been troubled by patients having to worry about money while also dealing with illness, work and family responsibilities.
The coronavirus pandemic added further hardship in the year the clinic closed. He saw cancellation as a concrete way his family could help.
UAMS later recognized Atiq's gesture, noting the debt relief for nearly 200 former patients of the treatment center he founded.
Photo: Brandonrush. CC0 via Wikimedia Commons.
One doctor could remove one part of the burden
A later CBS interview reported two rounds of cancellation in 2020, including the Christmas notices.
The decision did not solve the wider problem of medical debt. It did give former patients a clear answer about these accounts: nothing more was owed to his clinic.
For a doctor whose treatment work had ended there, that was another way to care for the people the practice had served. The remaining balances became a burden they no longer had to carry.