California Medical Billing Advocates
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 834336436
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2019–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990-EZ 2025
- Location
- San Francisco, CA, USA
- Phone
- 4156323316
- Rating
- 84
- Verdict
- STRONG
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Public Finance, Taxation, Monetary Policy
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $4,300
- Expenses
- $5,119
- Assets
- $1,151
- Liabilities
- $0
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
2 people listed
Executive titles in this filing
- Gary K Ko (President and Chairperson of the Board)
People named in this filing
- Gary K Ko (President and Chairperson of the Board)
- Canyon A Chan (Treasurer and Secretary)
Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
To reduce or eliminate unjust medical bills before they become crippling debt.
What it reported doing in 2025
Medical Bills Negotiation and Financial Education: Given the complexity of the U.S. healthcare system, patients often receive surprise medical bills despite having health insurance. Furthermore, many patients who are underinsured or uninsured receive grossly inflated medical bills directly from hospitals and doctors. Many patients cannot afford to pay these bills and let them turn into medical debt, which is one of the leading causes of personal bankruptcy in the U.S. CALMBA believes that many of these bills are excessive and unjust to the patient. CALMBA's mission is to reduce or eliminate medical bills, by negotiating lower medical bills on the patient's behalf using financial, legal, and medical tactics. CALMBA focuses its efforts on helping economically disadvantaged, low income, and poor patients. CALMBA started operations at the end of September 2019. During 2019, CALMBA received 271 inquiries for assistance with medical bills, of which we accepted 161 cases totaling $3.7 million in medical bills. For the cases that completed negotiations in 2019, the average bill reduction was $6,400 per patient, while the estimated cost to negotiate the case averaged $350, for an 18x social return on investment. As part of the medical bill negotiation process, CALMBA develops a deep understanding of the patients' financial profile, including income, expenses, and assets. As a result, CALMBA also offers patients financial advice and education on financial literacy, budgeting, and debt management with the goal of putting the patient on a more stable financial footing going forward.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Donor-supported. 100% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 100% of reported program-service expenses outside its grant, affiliate-payment, and member-benefit lines. This expense classification does not rule out separately announced grant awards.
The verdict
STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Program spending has declined or grown slowly and revenue has declined or grown slowly.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 100
- Transparency & Controls: 82
- Sustainability: 30
- Growth: 0
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
- Program expense ratio: 100%; rating input score 100
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Limited
Sustainability
- Operating margin: -19%; rating input score 22; 22nd percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.22; rating input score 19; 19th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 0%; rating input score 56; 56th percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: -28.4% per year; rating input score 0; 15th percentile among comparable filings
- Revenue growth: -63% per year; rating input score 0; 5th percentile among comparable filings
- Asset growth: -44% per year; rating input score 0; 5th percentile among comparable filings
Details
- Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 100% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 1 filed program accomplishment · $5K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 2 people listed
- Consistency: 9 of 9 current checks pass
- Schedules: 1 filed schedules
- Filing history: 7 filing years from 2019 to 2025
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
- People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.
Key Signals
Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.
- High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
- High — Growth: Revenue growth scored 0/100.
- High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 22/100.
- High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 19/100.
- High — Growth: Asset growth scored 0/100.
- Review — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 56/100.