Her spine surgery was denied. Doctors say it’s all too common.

“There are a lot of decisions in the gray area in spine surgery,” said Digiorgio. “You could show a presentation of patients, an MRI, to five surgeons in the spine and get 10 different answers.”

Dr. Randall Dryer, an orthopedic surgeon of the Central Texas Spine Institute who treated whites but did not carry out his surgery, said that doctors must often assert a convincing affair to insurance companies.

“Insurance companies refuse to accept the fact that degenerative disease surgery is effective. They will say that it is because the medical literature does not support it, but they take articles selected by cherry that support their case, and they tend to minimize other literature that would indicate that surgical treatment is effective,” said Dryer.

An AETNA spokesperson has pointed out NBC news to two published analyzes that have found no clear advantage of column surgery for non-surgical intervention. But other studies have shown that spine surgery is greater than non -surgical treatments, such as physiotherapy or injections, and reduces the invalidity of a patient.

White’s father, Wrath James White, is the insurance lessee of his insurance plan. He said he was shocked to receive a letter from Aetna saying that their cover request had been refused.

“I had never had an insurance to reject a legitimate claim before, and my daughter’s pain seemed roughly as legitimate as possible,” he said.

When her daughter was diagnosed, the family tried less invasive approaches than surgery such as physiotherapy, steroid injections and anti-inflammatory pills. But it has become clear for them – and for White’s doctors – that spine surgery was the only option to alleviate its pain.

“I did everything I could for four years to avoid doing surgery,” said Dryer. He noted in a 2022 report that white was “miserable” and “I could considerably improve the patient’s condition with simple decompression and discectomy”, referring to surgical procedures to eliminate compression on his nerves.

If you deal with invoices that seem to be offline or a refusal of coverage, care or repairs, whether for health, house or car, please send us an email to Costofdenial@nbcuni.com.

A White’s surgeon’s report in April said that she had “failed several physiotherapy and pain management cycles and as such, I think she has reached a point for surgery”.

White’s parents have finally decided to create a gofundme to raise funds for surgery. In a few days, they received more than $ 33,000 in donations – near the amount that was cited for them for White surgery, including hospital costs, anesthesiology and doctor’s expense.

Wrath James White said he thought that many of these gifts were “small and silent protests”.