Patients Should *NOT* Have To Write Policy Briefs
Sally Neely Nix lives with multiple autoimmune diseases and chronic pain that would send most people to the ER. She manages it with nerve block injections. Minimally invasive. Relatively cheap. Months of relief. No opioids.
Her insurance company calls them "experimental."
So she did what patients with complex disease are forced to do. She gathered the medical literature. Compiled the evidence. Built an executive policy brief. Sent it directly to the CEO and Medical Director of Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina.
She did all of this while in extreme pain.
At a time when the system is desperate to reduce opioid dependence, insurers are blocking the treatments that actually help patients avoid opioids. Then they hide behind the word "investigational" like it means something other than "we don't want to pay."
Patients become researchers. Policy advocates. Medical translators. Negotiators. All while trying to survive inside bodies that demand extraordinary resilience.
This is the system working exactly as designed.
Read Sally's full piece below.
Welcome to 2026: The Year of the Patient where the sick shall inherit the ballot.
If this hits home, drop your horror story in the comments and tell me where you have seen it happen. How about a rage repost? Or tag a former colleague just for fun. Every impression pushes this in front of more people who deal with the same mess.
Are you new here? My condolences and my thanks. Follow along and stay loud with the rest of us. More voices means more pressure on a system that counts on silence
