After Susannah Reed-McCullough\u2019s husband died in 2018, she and their young daughters continued to receive health insurance through his job as a firefighter in Maryland.<\/p>\n
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 doctor\u2019s billing department and learned the insurance company had dropped the children\u2019s coverage.<\/p>\n
The drop turned out to be a mistake. But Reed-McCullough said she was forced to act as the go-between for her late husband\u2019s human resources department and their insurer \u2014 all while worried about her daughters\u2019 being uninsured.<\/p>\n
In this installment of InvestigateTV and KFF Health News\u2019 \u201cCostly Care\u201d series, Caresse Jackman, InvestigateTV\u2019s national consumer investigative reporter, explores how administrative errors can leave patients on the hook for medical bills they shouldn\u2019t owe, sometimes with few options to correct a problem they didn\u2019t create.<\/p>\n
Jackman interviewed Elisabeth Rosenthal, senior contributing editor at KFF Health News, who said accidental coverage drops are \u201ca common problem\u201d in need of attention from state regulators.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople make mistakes, systems make mistakes, and they should be held responsible for them, not the patient,\u201d Rosenthal said.<\/p>\n
KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/p>\nUSE OUR CONTENT<\/h3>\n