A Canadian woman whose emergency C-section while in Hawaii left her with a bill of almost $1 million, which her insurance company is refusing to pay, says it could leave her family bankrupt.
Jennifer Huculak and her husband Darren Kimmel of Saskatchewan went to Hawaii on vacation in October 2013 when she was 6 months pregnant.
With permission from her doctor, and after purchasing travel insurance from Blue Cross, the couple headed for Hawaii.
When they purchased their insurance a Blue Cross representative assured them they would be covered, Huculak says.
However, just two days into the vacation, Huculak's water broke so she was airlifted from Maui to a hospital in Honolulu, where she was put on bed rest for six weeks. Daughter Reece was delivered nine weeks early via emergency C-section and was kept in the hospital's NICU for two months.
The result left the couple with a healthy baby girl but with a bill for $950,000 that Blue Cross is refusing to cover.
"We thought we had done everything right," Huculak says. "We thought we had covered all avenues and we thought we were covered. We thought we were safe to go."
In denying the claim, Blue Cross has argued Huculak had a pre-existing condition and should have been considered as having a high-risk pregnancy.
"We review each claim carefully and are confident that our decision to decline this claim was done in a considered manner based on the contract terms, the situation which resulted in this emergency medical claim, and a review of recent medical history," the company said in a statement.
Huculak denied that her pregnancy was ever condered high-risk.
"I was never told by any doctor that I was a high-risk pregnancy," she said. "I had a bladder infection at four months that caused some hemorrhaging, but I was treated and everything was cleared up."
Huculak's doctor in Saskatchewan wrote to Blue Cross, explaining the bladder infection was in no way related to her early labor, but the insurance company still denied coverage.
Huculak and Kimmel say they have not made a decision on whether they will fight the insurer's claim denial.
"We haven't made a decision," Kimmel says. "We don't really know what to do. We're kind of weighing out our options."
"We're probably leaning towards bankruptcy, I suppose, unless we can figure out another way," he says.
