After Susannah Reed-McCulloughâs husband died in 2018, she and their young daughters continued to receive health insurance through his job as a firefighter in Maryland.
Then, in 2024, she got an unexpected medical bill: $377 for a checkup for one of her children the previous fall. Reed-McCullough said she called the doctorâs billing department and learned the insurance company had dropped the childrenâs coverage.
The drop turned out to be a mistake. But Reed-McCullough said she was forced to act as the go-between for her late husbandâs human resources department and their insurer â all while worried about her daughtersâ being uninsured.
In this installment of InvestigateTV and Ńîšóĺú´ŤĂ˝Ňîl Health Newsâ âCostly Careâ series, Caresse Jackman, InvestigateTVâs national consumer investigative reporter, explores how administrative errors can leave patients on the hook for medical bills they shouldnât owe, sometimes with few options to correct a problem they didnât create.
Jackman interviewed Elisabeth Rosenthal, senior contributing editor at Ńîšóĺú´ŤĂ˝Ňîl Health News, who said accidental coverage drops are âa common problemâ in need of attention from state regulators.
âPeople make mistakes, systems make mistakes, and they should be held responsible for them, not the patient,â Rosenthal said.