Woman stranded in US after surgery returns
Nicole Erickson, who was stranded overseas following an emergency surgery has returned home, with a debt that has halved.
A nine-day trip to the United States (US) to celebrate a close friend’s wedding turned into a traumatic and extremely expensive month for Erickson and her husband Scott.
When the pair flew to New York in January, Erickson suffered an extensive blood clot from her left ankle up to her abdomen as well as other clots in her lungs.
Erickson had emergency surgery at Stonybrook Hospital in New York and it was discovered she had a condition called May-Thurner syndrome, which is an anatomical variant in the way her arteries and veins lie by her pelvis that can cause compression of her left leg vein.
Her insurance company Allianz, a provider that offers cover in partnership with an ANZ credit card, refused to cover her hospital bills, which added up to nearly $320,000, saying she had a pre-existing condition. Though she has no history of clots, the company said because she has a gene that has the potential to increase her risk of blood clots, the presence of that gene is considered a pre-existing medical condition and excludes her from coverage.
The insurance company has ignored several attempts by Stuff to get a response to questions.
Erickson had to pay hundreds of dollars for prescriptions, had multiple follow up hospital appointments and had to be cleared by the surgeon before she could fly home.
Although she had family to stay with, Erickson’s bills continued to come until she was cleared to fly home on February 12. “When I was cleared to fly I was absolutely relieved. I just wanted to get home to my dog and cat, and my family, and a health system I was familiar with.” She was relieved that at home she would not have to consider the costs of every test doctors wanted to run, or drug they wanted to prescribe. She had pay to fly home business class so she could lie on a flat bed with her legs elevated. Erickson has returned to work since getting home to Christchurch.
“[It] isn't necessarily ideal with how I feel, but I need to be earning in the face of all this.”
She gets tired easily and although she is on medication, the clots in her lungs make her breathless.
“I’m just trying to play catch up with doctors’ appointments. Anything that could medically wait until we got home, we delayed so that we wouldn't be adding to the bill.”
She is now trying to wade through the paperwork involved with submitting an appeal with the insurance company.
“Their lack of communication with us really has made it more difficult. We are trying to balance the cost or sorting it ourselves versus paying a lawyer and it not working out, then having more bills to pay,” she said.
The total for the bills received so far come to just under US$200,000 (about NZ$320,000). But there has been some good news, Erickson had made a financial aid application with Stonybrook Hospital in the hope they would consider reducing her bill. Because she was not a US citizen she didn’t have high hopes for it being accepted.
This week she learned the hospital had approved the application and had halved her bill.
“It’s mixed feelings. I was superexcited, and relieved. Halving the bill is amazing but even at half, it’s still a daunting amount of money.”
Her mum had set up a Givealittle page to help raise funds for the bills.