BELLEVILLE, Ill. – Bob Wurtz is weary but walking. He beat throat cancer. Two neck surgeries. Countless lung infections. A tracheostomy and feeding tubes. Kim Wurtz, his wife, has been by his side through it all.

“You've got, you know, doctor visits. We're at a doctor almost every week for one thing or another. Check up for this. Check up for that. Blood work for this. CT scan,” she said.

When they’re not at the doctor, Kim’s caring for Bob. Their Belleville home is filled with medical technology to keep him alive. Kim’s also battling the barrage of bills they’ve received from hospitals and insurance companies.

“Ten months I've been fighting with this bill, not sleeping at night, worried,” she said. “I've already had one heart attack. I don't need another one.”

If a medical bill was a heart attack, this bill would be the windowmaker. $375,936 for care Bob received at SSM Health St. Louis University Hospital from Oct. 18, 2022, to Nov. 19, 2022. Bob’s insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, denied the claim.

“They're saying it wasn't medically necessary for him to be in the hospital,” Kim said. “And I'm like, ‘Well, he had surgery.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, well, we, we don't look at anything beyond the fact that he was admitted for being dizzy,’ and we denied it at that time.”

Contact 2 has investigated similar insurance denials for nearly a decade.

“They’re not paying the bill. It wasn’t medically necessary for me to be airlifted,” Jeannie Radford told FOX 2 in a 2016 interview.

Radford was airlifted to St. Louis Children’s Hospital during an emergency pregnancy. Anthem denied her $50,000 claim.

“When our son is being born and it’s a life-or-death situation, we’re going to do whatever the doctors and educated staff is telling us to do,” Julie Zapor told us in a 2018 interview.

Born 10 weeks early, Zapor’s son was airlifted to Children’s Hospital following an emergency C-section. Anthem said the flight “wasn’t medically necessary” and denied the $35,000 claim.

“We see hundreds of patients every year, if not every month, who’ve been denied unnecessarily by insurance companies for their care,” Caitlin Donovan, senior director of the Patient Advocate Foundation, said.

She says insurance companies have automated the claims process; in some cases, delivering hundreds of denials in less than a minute.

“Because of that, patients are being unfairly denied because you don’t have a real person with expertise looking over these records and making informed decisions,” Donovan said.

Donovan says a “medical necessity” is being used too broadly by insurance companies to deny care and claims. She’s hopeful change is on the horizon.

“The cases are so obvious, and lawmakers are paying attention,” she said. “I really think with enough noise, we will make a change here.”

Contact 2 has driven change. In 2018, our reporting led Anthem to reverse its decision and pay Julie Zapor’s $35,0000 claim in full. Six years later, we’ve helped Bob and Kim Wurtz erase an even bigger bill. We urged Blue Cross Blue Sheild of Illinois to reexamine the Wurtzes’ claim

“I want to thank you. Blue Cross Blue Shield called me earlier this week and told me they had sent it in for internal review and they were now approving it,” Kim said.

In a statement, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois told FOX 2: “Often claims denials can be something as simple as billing error from a provider or hospital, such as incorrect coding of a diagnosis or modifier. We put members first when reviewing claims to help them receive appropriate, covered services while being good stewards of their premium dollars.”

“I know that it was you guys who did it because all these months of me calling and writing and having three-way conversations with both the hospital and BCBS was getting us absolutely nowhere,” Kim said.

With a $375,000 burden off their back, the Kim and Bob Wurtz are ready to experience a season of change.

“We’re just happy as we get on through the, I’m not going to say, autumn of our lives, because we’re still in the late summer, right? So, we can do some things, have some fun, and get healthy,” Kim said.