A doctor fighting insurance companies to cover their patients is a rare sight these days, which is why one dentist from Colorado is now going wildly viral. The dentist, distraught at her patient’s predicament, made sure that the patient’s insurance company heard her opinion and, in the process, she also reversed their decision to deny care for her patient, all because of a ridiculous reason.
Dr. Katherine Sislow of Sislow Family Dental in Denver, Colorado, is the dentist in question. One of Sislow’s patients had a complicated root canal that was supposedly covered by insurance. However, the insurance claim got denied thrice despite the clinic’s follow-ups. Hence, Sislow called the insurance directly to give them a piece of her mind:
Apparently, the insurance company denied the claim for the root canal because the patient “didn’t get a pre-authorization,” even though pre-authorization wasn’t required (just “needed”). The pre-authorization could only be waived “if it’s an emergency.” Dr. Sislow challenged this reasoning as her patient was actually in a dental emergency at the time due to the swelling. However, the insurance company retorted that an emergency procedure is only counted as an emergency if it’s “A patient so bad that they need to go to the Emergency Room.”
Of course, anyone who has received dental treatment will know that dental clinics don’t have Emergency Rooms and even Emergency Rooms in standard hospitals don’t have dentists. Thankfully, after being passed around to different insurance authorities in an 88-minute bureaucratic episode, the insurance claim finally got approved. Dr. Sislow’s persistence paid off, and quite literally for her clinic and for her patient.
People online are praising the dentist for her doggedness
While many insurance cases have been denied due to silly reasons, a rather arbitrary Emergency Room metric is quite ridiculous. Hence, Dr. Sislow’s viewers on her TikTok page have commended her for not just taking care of her patient, but also fighting a rather broken system with too much red tape.
“Few doctors fight this hard for patients… Thanks for your hard work,” according to a TikTok commenter, with another pointing out the absurdity of the situation because one of the insurance company workers didn’t scroll down the computer screen. Others have praised Dr. Sislow for having the patience of a saint in a phone call that lasted more than an hour, “We are not mad enough,” rants another commenter.
Dr. Sislow’s phone call no doubt highlighted the difficulties and the dysfunctions of US healthcare insurance. “Our health insurance system HAS to be fixed,” insists a TikTok user, a sentiment that Americans have echoed for decades now. Some have even recalled their own inane experiences in dealing with insurance companies, “They denied the scan to verify my cancer diagnosis… because I didn’t have a scan verifying my cancer diagnosis. 🤦♂️🤦♂️.”
