advice with my mom's cancer testing and treatment
hi there, I'm my mom's medical POA and I'm not very experienced with medical billing or insurance stuff at all, and I'd like some advice on what can be done in this highly complicated situation. we live in Colorado and my mom has BCBS of Illinois PPO insurance through her job at Walgreens. I thoroughly checked beforehand that the urgent care, ER and hospital she went to were all in-network, but I wasn't aware that insurance was going to be so picky about the rest of her treatment.
nearly a month ago now, my mom went to the urgent care after months of worsening debilitating pain and sickness. a bunch of labs, an x-ray and a CT scan with contrast revealed that her kidneys were failing and she had lesions and fractures in her back. she went to the ER the next day and was then from there admitted to the hospital for around 2 weeks. during her hospital stay she got a biopsy done that revealed that she has multiple myeloma cancer which caused both the kidney and the bone problems, and she received dialysis treatment that helped her kidneys to recover. according to her doctors, treating the cancer is the only thing that will help the rest of her health problems as it's all connected.
she got out of the hospital last week and has begun chemotherapy as instructed. she had gotten a notice in the mail that the claim for her hospital stay was apparently accepted but I guess they called her and surprised her with all of this. I know that I can help her appeal but I'm honestly not even sure how to start this process. my family and I are all very stressed and scared and I would really appreciate figuring out what steps I can take so that we can at least reduce the cost of my mom's lifesaving treatment. I have no clue what we're going to do about her leave of absence stuff either.
all of the information I have is secondhand from her for now, but I do plan on looking at the insurance website and her chart when I see her next (we don't live together). she isn't very tech literate so we've really struggled with trying to stay up to date with all of this information. I really appreciate any help I can get with this!