Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Health and Wellness
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
 
Old 08-23-2019, 06:35 PM
 
Location: New Jersey
1,940 posts, read 1,017,999 times
Reputation: 2075

Advertisements

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/23/healt...ary/index.html

Erika Zak died at 39 leaving her husband and 5 year old daughter because her insurance would not give her a liver after a botched operation. They owed it to her.

My heart goes out to her family and everyone in a similar situation. I believe everyone has a insurance nightmare story.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 08-25-2019, 07:56 AM
 
7,996 posts, read 10,360,749 times
Reputation: 15006
As horrible as it is to say this, the insurance company is probably glad she passed. Now she won't cost them anymore money. That's probably why they denied it in the first place. Insurance companies suck.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-25-2019, 10:24 AM
 
14,349 posts, read 14,161,665 times
Reputation: 45641
Quote:
Originally Posted by OpinionExperience View Post
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/23/healt...ary/index.html

Erika Zak died at 39 leaving her husband and 5 year old daughter because her insurance would not give her a liver after a botched operation. They owed it to her.

My heart goes out to her family and everyone in a similar situation. I believe everyone has a insurance nightmare story.
The health insurance company behaved badly, but may have acted legally.

I read this story and my overall reaction to it was simply that bad things sometimes happen to people in life. Very few people her age develop colo rectal cancer. The article did not say what her stage of cancer was when it was diagnosed. In order for her to get the treatment she got--microwave therapy--I imagine it was quite advanced. Survival was probably always very questionable.

Problems are more likely to occur during treatment when cancer is advanced and treatment is more aggressive.

Finally, organ transplants are rare. When someone needs a liver transplant they are on death's doorstep, otherwise the procedure wouldn't be done in the first place.

Its so sad all this happened to this thirty-nine year old mother. However, life is full of uncertainties. We literally have no guarantees, but death and taxes.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-25-2019, 12:52 PM
 
Location: South Florida
924 posts, read 1,668,464 times
Reputation: 3311
The New York Times has a more complete summary of what happened. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/20/o...or.htmlhttp://


There is plenty of blame to go around from the initial botched laser procedure to remove the tumors that had spread to her liver, to United's repeated botched reviews of her case in reviewing approval for the transplant and, finally to UNOS's failure to review her records fully to see that she may not fit neatly into their new scoring system.

She had Stage IV colon cancer, but had achieved remission. Part of her treatment was a newer immunotherapy that made it more likely she would stay in remission. During treatment, they used a laser procedure to remove tumors from her liver and managed to burn a fist-size hole through it. This led to complications and the need for the new liver.

United and UNOS both screwed up by repeatedly concluding that the liver issue was due to cancer and/or chemo and also failing to consider that her odds of staying in remission were higher than similar patients in the past due to the immunotherapy she received.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-25-2019, 08:40 PM
 
Location: New Jersey
1,940 posts, read 1,017,999 times
Reputation: 2075
Quote:
Originally Posted by markg91359 View Post
The health insurance company behaved badly, but may have acted legally.

I read this story and my overall reaction to it was simply that bad things sometimes happen to people in life. Very few people her age develop colo rectal cancer. The article did not say what her stage of cancer was when it was diagnosed. In order for her to get the treatment she got--microwave therapy--I imagine it was quite advanced. Survival was probably always very questionable.

Problems are more likely to occur during treatment when cancer is advanced and treatment is more aggressive.

Finally, organ transplants are rare. When someone needs a liver transplant they are on death's doorstep, otherwise the procedure wouldn't be done in the first place.

Its so sad all this happened to this thirty-nine year old mother. However, life is full of uncertainties. We literally have no guarantees, but death and taxes.
We buy insurance to cover uncertainties, death shouldn't be expedited for profit.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-25-2019, 09:44 PM
 
6,927 posts, read 4,385,634 times
Reputation: 22612
This is beyond sad but the insurance company was negligent.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-29-2019, 06:09 AM
 
Location: New Jersey
1,940 posts, read 1,017,999 times
Reputation: 2075
Thanks for your responses.

I have a medical and insurance story, not to Erika's extreme, like most everyone and wanted to post Erika's story.

It's hard to comprehend how someone and their family at their ultimate low and vulnerability can only get help through CNN coverage to get immediate help.

Just shows how corrupt our medical and insurance has become, profit's over people.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 08-29-2019, 06:28 AM
 
Location: Southwestern, USA, now.
21,020 posts, read 19,257,470 times
Reputation: 23654
Classic John Grisham, "The Rainmaker"...if you are into novels...the ins and outs of Ins companies.
Yes, I know a case where the agent slipped and said, 'Well we didn't pay 'something' because we
thought she Cheryl would die soon'....got it on tape. Well she lasted 5 more years...but it was
harder cuz they wouldn't pay for certain things.
Her old cancer, on record, was in remission. But they would not pay for things for her painful Repetitive Stress Injury
from work...
No house cleaning help, for example +. She couldn't pull a weed or open a jar....let alone do laundry, make
a bed, vacuum, iron. Her husband with a full time job had to do 'everything', even, button her buttons.
Just sayin---they needed a House Helper. But, nope.
The stress brought the cancer back we presume.

Corrupt? Heartless? Oh, yeah.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Health and Wellness

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 09:16 PM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top