CUMMING, Ga.—After three years of doctors’ visits and $40,000 in medical bills didn’t cure their daughter’s rare condition, April and Justin Beck found a specialist three states away who offered a promising treatment.
They set out before dawn last spring for the nine-hour drive to Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock, where Dr. Aravindhan Veerapandiyan explained how infusions of antibodies could help Emily, now 9 years old, and her misfiring immune system.
They returned home with an appointment to start the infusions. But the Becks’ insurer, UnitedHealthcare, declined to pay for a treatment it said wasn’t medically necessary.
They decided to fight back. “I really had no idea it was going to be this hard,” April Beck said.
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