Erika Zak, a dying mom on a waiting list for a liver transplant, won a reprieve after being turned down for the surgery through a series of pleas to the insurance company, including to its CEO.
Zak, 38, was approved for the liver transplant surgery on May 7 by UnitedHealth, five days after detailing her condition in a letter directly to David Wichmann, chief executive officer of the insurer, CNN reported.
"Waiting for insurance to approve the only thing that will save me: a liver," Zak wrote on Instagram. "Waiting for my liver to fail completely; waiting to die. Waiting to be saved."
In 2014, a few months after she gave birth to her daughter, the Oregon native learned she had stage 4 metastatic colon cancer, per CNN. While treating the cancer, Zak suffered complications following microwave ablation that left her liver damaged.
Despite her doctors at the Cleveland Clinic explaining her condition and how a liver transplant would save her life, UnitedHealth reportedly ruled against it, saying that the surgery would not be a promising treatment.
After repeated appeals by Zak and her physicians failed, she wrote to Wichmann, charging that UnitedHealth's review process was full of errors, and that kept her from winning approval from the company, CNN said.
MarketWatch reported it was unclear whether Zak’s letter worked, even though she never heard back from Wichmann, or whether the reversal was the result of subsequent advocacy by her husband Scott and her medical team.
Zak was officially placed on the liver transplant wait list at the Cleveland Clinic on Friday.
According to the Columbia University Department of Surgery, there are nearly 17,000 people waiting for a liver transplant in the United States with the median national waiting time in 2006 of 321 days.
Doctors believe Zak could receive a kidney in "a few months" because of her condition.
UnitedHealth issued a brief statement about Zak’s case to CNN.
"We had on-going conversations with her husband and contacted him as soon as the decision was made to approve the transplant request."
Zak, who had been working with CNN on a story before the approval about her case, told the network she decided to move forward with going public to speak up for others who have gone through similar insurance denials.
"No one should have to fight and work that hard, especially when I have all these doctors saying it will save my life," Zak told CNN.
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