Inside STAT: My baby needed expensive care. Why was my insurer on a long weekend?

(MIKE REDDY FOR STAT)

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, STAT columnist Jennifer Adaeze Okwerekwu had a scare: Her baby spiked a fever, was in respiratory distress, and had to go to the emergency department. Doctors there suggested the baby be admitted to the intensive care unit. But Okwerekwu, who’s also a fourth-year psychiatry resident, didn’t know if her insurance was going to cover the high cost of daily admission into the ICU, and her provider was closed until the Monday after the holiday. “Working holidays, nights, and weekends is the cost of working in health care — a cost that many insurance companies are neglecting to pay,” she writes. Such neglect should be illegal, she argues, especially since it could mean that someone risks incurring devastating medical bills. Read more here.