LINCOLN COUNTY, N.C. – A Lincolnton man who was airlifted to the hospital after a car accident says his insurance won’t cover the cost.
Stanley Mull says he was driving on Startown Road in Lincoln County when a driver cut in front of him to get to a gas station.
“I didn’t have a chance to slow down or anything,” Mull said.
The damage to the front of his truck made it look like an accordion, and the inside was filled with deployed airbags.
“I thought I was OK, but my daughter showed up, my youngest daughter, and she said, ‘Dad, you’re going to the emergency room,'” he said.
Mull went to the emergency room, where they ran tests “and discovered I was bleeding internally,” he said.
Mull says the doctors had him airlifted to Winston-Salem. “I had no say in that decision. It was strictly the doctors’ decision,” he said.
Even if he had had input, “my family would have said yes, and I would have said yes”.
He says the other driver was at fault, so her insurance should have covered his injuries. But Mull says she didn’t have enough coverage, so it fell to his insurance, BlueCross Blue Shield of North Carolina.
“I thought it was all taken care of,” he said. But it wasn’t.
BlueCross twice denied the claim. It considered the flight “not medically necessary”.
Mull had to pay $43,427.
“You work and work and work, and that kind of money is hard to come by,” he said.
Desperate, he reached out to Action 9’s Jason Stoogenke for help. Stoogenke emailed BlueCross and got Mull to sign a privacy release so the company could discuss his case with Action 9. He told Stoogenke that Mull’s claim was going through the appeals process, and less than two weeks later, Mull says he received a letter saying BlueCross had reviewed its policy, reversed its denial, and now deemed his flight medically necessary.
“We are always happy to help our members navigate the appeals process,” the company told Action 9 in an email.
Stoogenke says to remember that you always have the right to refuse an ambulance or air ambulance. The problem is that you may not be conscious or have time to consider your options. So if you’re shocked by a medical bill, any medical bill:
- Realise that medical bills aren’t always final.
- Don’t be afraid to dispute your bill.
- Do what Mull did and be persistent.
