Shay Rubin said she couldn’t believe it when she heard that her Health Care Insurance Provider, Coventry Health Care, would not cover her 5-year-old son's cochlear implants.
“When you pay for insurance, you expect the things you need the most to be covered,” Rubin said in a press release from Change.org. “We were truly shocked that Coventry Health Care refused to cover Carson’s cochlear implant surgery and when we learned that the company had recently posted record revenues, it just made us furious that they would do this to Carson and other children like him.”
Rubin’s son, Carson, suffers from auditory neuropathy -- a condition that causes him to hear deafening heavy static that increases with noise levels around him. Rubin said his doctors have said he’s a great candidate for cochlear implants, or “robot ears” as Carson calls them. Carson was born with this rare disease that left him legally deaf. The surgery could allow him to hear in time to start Kindergarten. But, Rubin reports, Coventry has denied the coverage.
But Rubin and her husband, Brian, couldn't leave it at that. They have launched a petition on Change.org asking people to urge Coventry to change their mind. So far more than 100,000 people have now joined this fast-growing campaign.
We’re so thrilled to see thousands of people signing our petition on Change.org and demanding that Coventry cover this surgery for Carson,” Rubin said.
Coventry had not yet responded to Patch at the time this story was published, but the story will be updated with any response received. Christine Grow, a spokesperson for for the company, recently told WSB-TV that she could not comment about any specific case because of privacy concerns, but said she was not aware of any small group plan that covers cochlear implants. According to the press release from Change.org, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration reports that more than 90 percent of commercial health plans in the U.S. do cover the surgery, Coventry Health Care of Georgia is just not one of them. Aetna, who recently took over Coventry Health Care, however, reportedly does.
Supporters of the Rubin’s campaign have flooded their petition page with personal comments about their own experiences with the life-changing surgery. A story on , who, at just 14-months became the youngest person at Children’s Healthcare to get a cochlear implant. She is now an active middle-schooler at Loganville Middle School.
The Rubin’s, in the meantime, also have engaged in a fundraising effort to raise the money to cover the surgery at YouCaring.com. They are looking to raise the $250,000 necessary to cover the cost.
