Out-of-network and on your own? What to do if your insurer drops your doctors
Oona Zenda/KFF Health News
When a Missouri mom's health insurance company couldn't come to an agreement with her hospital, most of her doctors were suddenly out of network. She wondered how she would get her kids' care covered or find new doctors. "For a family of five, … where do we even start?"
Amber Wingler, 42, from Columbia, Missouri
Last winter, Amber Wingler started getting a series of increasingly urgent messages from her local hospital in Columbia, Missouri, letting her know her family's health care might soon be upended.
MU Health Care, where most of her family's doctors work, was mired in a contract dispute with Wingler's insurance company, Anthem. The existing contract was set to expire.
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Then on March 31, Wingler received an email alerting her that the next day, Anthem was dropping the hospital from its network. It left her reeling.
"I know that they go through contract negotiations all the time, … but it just seemed like bureaucracy that wasn't going to affect us. I'd never been pushed out-of-network like that before," she said.
The timing was awful.
Wingler's 8-year-old daughter, Cora, had been having unexplained troubles wi
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