About 90,000 people spent months in limbo as central Missouri's major medical provider fought over insurance contracts. These disputes between insurers and hospitals are a recurring problem.

Amy Frank said it took 17 hours on the phone over nearly three weeks, bouncing between her insurer and her local hospital system, to make sure her plan would cover her husband's post-surgery care.

Many of her calls never got past the hold music. When they did, the hospital told her to call her insurer. The insurer told her to have the hospital fax a form to a special number. The hospital responded that they'd been instructed to send faxes to a different number.

"It was just a big loophole we were caught in, going around and around," Frank said.

Frank and her husband, Allen, faced that ellipse of fr

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