Office of Primary Care and Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) Program

An IV in an Emergency Department

(MAY 17, 2023) Deirdre O’Reilly, M.D., M.P.H., associate professor of pediatrics and neonatal-perinatal medicine, was interviewed for an opinion piece in the Washington Post about the increase in denials of health insurance claims, and the increasingly nonsensical reasons given by insurers. Sometimes, the insurers’ denials defy not just medical standards of care but also plain old human logic — as O’Reilly experienced firsthand when her college-age son, suffering a life-threatening anaphylactic allergic reaction, was saved by epinephrine shots and steroids administered intravenously in a hospital emergency room. She received a bill for $4,792 and a denial letter from the family’s insurer saying the treatment was “not medically necessary.” “The worst part was not the money we owed,” she said. “The worst part was that the denial letters made no sense — mostly pages of gobbledygook.” She has filed two appeals, so far without success.

This topic was also covered in numerous other media outlets, including Opelika-Auburn News, L’Observateur, WFMZ-TV (Allentown, PA), Quad-City Times, Albany Democrat-Herald, Denison Bulletin & Review, Waco Tribune-Herald‎, Lincoln Journal Star, Independent Tribune, Napa Valley Register, Hickory Daily Record, Greensboro News & Record, and the Buffalo News, to name just a few.