Magazine Fundraiser for David Lockwood; A Real Insurance Dilemma

This is an article about a young boy named David Lockwood. I don't know David and I have never met him or his parents. My sister has known David's parents for over 20 years and her concern and involvement is how I became interested in David's problem and how I became involved in trying to do a small part to help a family plight that I am sure is duplicated thousands of times over in America every day. There are many other David's out there but my sister has made this one personal for me and since the problem is universal, it merits some discussion. I admit that I cannot begin to solve the problem but writing about the frustration those parents feel is important.
As a physician, I am faced daily with people who have insurance problems and some of those problems are not the fault of the patient. There are people who have health insurance and they pay dearly for it and then when they need it, they learn that what they thought was good health insurance does not cover there healthcare problems.
According to my sister, David is one of hundreds of thousands of children with problems at birth which doctor's cannot find a cause for and therefore cannot put forth a definitive diagnosis.Therein lies the problem with David. There is no question that he is sick and at four years of age cannot do anything that a normal child of four can do. The doctors cannot make a diagnosis and if you don't have a diagnosis, most insurance companies will not pay.
I know if I order a test on a patient, the hospital insists I put a diagnosis or the insurance company may not pay. Often we doctors are ordering tests to discover or confirm what we suspect the diagnosis is, but if we say we don't have a diagnosis the insurance company won't pay. In some cases being sick is not enough.

I don't pretend to understand the complexities of health insurance plans but I do know that in many cases the facts are if there is no diagnosis there are no insurance payments. Apparently David has fallen into this black hole of health insurance, and his family has finally, as a last resort, turned to online magazine fundraising to try to get David the help he needs and pay the bills.
I am blessed to have healthy children and grandchildren and can't imagine how difficult it is for parents to have to ask others to help them in paying there health care bills.

So this is a story that touches home because my sister is making her friends aware of the problem and of the fundraising efforts of David's parents. If you want to read about David and better understand his plight there are links to follow.

http://www.eyedoctornewsletter.com/davidlockwood.html