Sometime early this summer I read something in your paper about surprise medical bills. Anything regarding healthcare or health insurance interests me, but I didn’t completely understand what that meant at the time.

Since then, I’ve heard many radio ads about them. The ads are warning elected officials that something must be done because surprise medical bills have so many bad effects. These bills come weeks after an emergency where patients have no choices. Their insurer denies some (or all) of the charges because they are deemed out-of-network. How in the world would you know during an emergency if you were in-network?

The ads advise that the prosperous insurance industry need to be given new guidelines that assures doctors and hospitals be adequately reimbursed so patients don’t go bankrupt as a result of an unplanned medical bill.

This situation could touch anyone. We need more information about these bills and what congress can do to re-direct insurance coverage in emergencies.