A man recovering from heart surgery at home is shocked when he finds out his insurance has denied coverage for a critical part of his hospital stay. When he looks into what happened, he finds a billing code that indicates his operation was elective. But it wasn’t — he was admitted through the ER with severe chest pain. He was told surgery was the only option.

So, he calls the hospital. They confirm the procedure was indeed medically necessary. Yet, because of a single incorrect entry — one that no clinician flagged while he was in the hospital — the system now treats his life-saving care as “elective.”

The error only cascades from there. Payment is denied, appeals are triggered, and now, the man recovering from surgery is caught between clinical truth and administrative fiction. From a p

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