A Maryland woman’s life-saving medicine suddenly stopped being covered, leaving her with the choice between coming up with $374,000 a year for her medicine or not taking it at all and risking serious health complications.
Renee Parcover of Glenwood suffers from numerous health complications after having a quadruple heart bypass.
"I also have an autoimmune disease," she said.
Parcover has Medicare and a private insurer, and up until a few months ago, her private insurance covered her very expensive drugs.
Her cheapest drug costs $14,000 a year, she said.
Life-saving shots cost $45,000 every six weeks.
Then she got a life-changing call.
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"It seemed that somehow I had been dropped,” she said. “I said, ‘What do you mean dropped?’ I had been paying my insurance."
She had been paying almost $700 per month.
Phone calls to her health insurance company left her even more confused and frustrated. No one seemed to know why she was no longer enrolled or why her medications were no longer covered.
"And that's when I told my husband that I was going to quit taking them altogether because the fight wasn't worth it to me," she said.
But her husband told her to call NBC4 Responds, which contacted the private insurer.
The next day, she got a call saying a three-month supply was being delivered.
"They said my infusions are now covered," she said.
NBC4 Responds learned Parcover had a specific clause in her policy that no one seemed to know about – not even her own health insurance. The coverage is there for all home infusions.
Nobody could explain why the system appeared to dis-enroll her, but she's once again fully covered.
With the stress removed, life is getting back to normal.
"I can't believe how wonderful I feel, and I can't thank you and Channel 4 enough,” she said. “I never thought this was ever going to get resolved."
