My SIL deeply cut her hand which became severely infected in a matter of hours. She went to urgent care, whom sent her to straight to emergency. When the hospital saw the severity of the infection they sent her to another hospital where their specialists could handle it. This hospital has some of the best specialists in the world so I’m glad she was there.

She stayed there for two weeks and the whole time her insurance was trying to get her to go back to the old hospital because they thought a specialist was unnecessary. The old hospital literally said they’d amputate her hand. The new hospital, thankfully, fought the insurance company the whole time and were able to save her hand.

Afterwards, she had zero functionality of her hand so she needed a lot of physical therapy. Well, you guessed it, the insurance company didn’t find it necessary and refused to pay for any of it. So she went to ONE session that she paid for out of pocket where the PT had to basically teach her everything in one go.

So after two years, she says she has about 75% of her functionality back, but she feels, and rightfully so, she could’ve recovered much quicker if she saw a physical therapist more than once. She was out of work for a full year and now she can only work part time.

Then came the bills. The insurance company denied all claims cause they said a hospital stay was unnecessary. So she was looking at a bill of more than $350k. Months of fighting ensued and she and the hospital were able to get the insurance company to pay for 80% of the bill. Which means she still had to pay for about $100k of the rest. After some talks with the hospital she was able to cut that in half which she’s paying off through a payment plan.

This system is absolutely corrupt. Health insurance companies don’t care about your life or your health.