Lydia Romero se esforzaba por escuchar la voz débil de su esposo al teléfono.

Una semana antes, agentes de inmigración apresaron a Julio César Peña delante de su casa en Glendale, California, y se lo llevaron. Ahora estaba en un hospital, después de haber sufrido un mini derrame cerebral. Le dijo a Romero que lo tenían esposado a la cama, de una mano y un pie, y que había agentes en la habitación escuchando la llamada. Tenía miedo de morir y quería que su esposa estuviera con él.

“¿En qué hospital estás?”, le preguntó Romero.

“No te puedo decir”, respondió él.

Viridiana Chabolla, abogada de Peña, tampoco pudo obtener una respuesta. El oficial de deportación asignado al caso y la empresa médica contratada en el Centro de Procesamiento del ICE en Adelanto se negaron a decirle dónde estaba internado. Frustrada, intentó llamar a un hospital cercano, el Providence St. Mary Medical Center.

“Me dijeron que aunque tuvieran bajo su cuidado a una persona detenida por el ICE, no podrían confirmar si estaba allí o no, que solo el ICE puede darme esa información”, contó Chabolla. El hospital confirmó esa política a KFF Health News.

Familiares y abogados de personas internadas tras ser detenidas por autoridades federales de inmigración dijeron que enfrentan grandes obstáculos para localizar a los pacientes, saber cómo están de salud y brindarles apoyo legal y emocional.

Aseguran que muchos hospitales se niegan a dar información o permitir el contacto con las personas detenidas. En cambio, dejan que los agentes de inmigración decidan cuánto contacto se permite, si es que se permite alguno. Esto, según los abogados, les arrebata a los pacientes su derecho constitucional a recibir asesoría legal, y los deja vulnerables a abusos.

Los hospitales dicen que buscan proteger la seguridad y privacidad de los pacientes, el personal y las autoridades, aunque empleados de centros de salud en Los Ángeles, Minneapolis y Portland, Oregon —ciudades donde el ICE ha realizado redadas— afirman que eso les ha dificultado su trabajo.

Algunos hospitales aplican lo que llaman “procedimientos de apagón” o blackout —a veces llamado “código negro”— que pueden incluir registrar al paciente con un seudónimo, eliminar su nombre del directorio del hospital o prohibir al personal confirmar si la persona está hospitalizada.

“Sabemos de varios casos en los que se usó este procedimiento de apagón en hospitales del estado, y es muy preocupante”, dijo Shiu-Ming Cheer, subdirectora de justicia migratoria y racial en el California Immigrant Policy Center, una organización de defensa de los inmigrantes.

Estados gobernados por demócratas, como California, Colorado y Maryland, han aprobado leyes para proteger a pacientes de operativos de inmigración dentro de hospitales. Sin embargo, esas leyes no cubren a quienes ya están bajo custodia del ICE.

Más detenidos hospitalizados

Peña es una de las más de 350.000 personas arrestadas por autoridades migratorias desde que el presidente Donald Trump regresó a la Casa Blanca.

A medida que aumentan los arrestos y detenciones, también lo hacen los reportes de personas trasladadas a hospitales por agentes de inmigración debido a enfermedades o lesiones, ya sea por condiciones preexistentes o derivadas del arresto o la detención.

El ICE ha recibido críticas por utilizar tácticas agresivas y mortales, y por reportes de maltrato y atención médica deficiente en sus centros de detención. El senador Adam Schiff, demócrata de California, dijo el 20 de enero, en una conferencia de prensa, frente a un centro de detención en California City, que habló con una mujer con diabetes detenida allí que no había recibido tratamiento en dos meses.

No hay estadísticas públicas sobre cuántas personas enferman o se lesionan bajo custodia del ICE, pero comunicados de prensa de la agencia indican que 32 personas murieron bajo custodia migratoria en 2025.

En lo que va del año, han muerto seis más.

El Departamento de Seguridad Nacional, que supervisa al ICE, no respondió a solicitudes de información sobre sus políticas ni sobre el caso de Peña.

Según las propias directrices del ICE, las personas bajo su custodia deben tener acceso a un teléfono, visitas de familiares y amigos, y consultas privadas con sus abogados.

La agencia puede tomar decisiones administrativas, incluyendo el tema de las visitas,  cuando un detenido está hospitalizado; pero, según las directrices, debe respetar las políticas del hospital para contactar a familiares si la persona está gravemente enferma.

Consultado sobre las prácticas hospitalarias con personas bajo custodia migratoria, y sobre si existen protocolos recomendados, Ben Teicher, vocero de la Asociación Estadounidense de Hospitales, no quiso comentar.

David Simon, vocero de la Asociación de Hospitales de California, expresó que “en algunos casos, a pedido de las autoridades, los hospitales mantienen la confidencialidad de los nombres de los pacientes y otra información que los identifique”.

Aunque las políticas varían, por lo general cualquier persona puede llamar a un hospital y preguntar por un paciente dando su nombre, y con frecuencia se le transfiere la llamada a la habitación, dijo William Weber, médico de emergencias en Minneapolis y director médico de Medical Justice Alliance, una organización que defiende los derechos médicos de personas bajo custodia.

Los familiares y personas autorizadas por el paciente pueden visitarlo. El personal médico también suele llamar a los familiares para informarles que alguien está hospitalizado o para pedir información que ayude en su atención.

Pero cuando se trata de personas bajo custodia de autoridades, los hospitales frecuentemente acceden a restringir el acceso y dar información, señaló Weber.

El argumento es que estas medidas evitan que personas no autorizadas amenacen al paciente o al personal, ya que los hospitales no tienen la infraestructura de seguridad de una cárcel. Algunos pacientes famosos también solicitan este tipo de medidas.

Abogados y trabajadores de salud cuestionan que esas restricciones sean realmente necesarias. La detención migratoria es una detención civil, no criminal. Aunque el gobierno de Trump afirma que su prioridad es arrestar y deportar criminales, la mayoría de los detenidos no tiene antecedentes penales, según datos del centro Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse y varios medios de comunicación.

Detenido delante de su casa

Según su esposa, Peña no tiene antecedentes penales. Llegó a Estados Unidos desde México cuando cursaba sexto grado, y tiene un hijo adulto en el ejército estadounidense. Tiene 43 años, padece enfermedad renal terminal y sobrevivió a un infarto en noviembre. Camina con dificultad y tiene pérdida parcial de la vista, explicó Romero. Fue detenido el 8 de diciembre, mientras descansaba en el exterior de su casa tras un tratamiento de diálisis.

Al principio, Romero logró ubicar a su esposo con el sistema en línea para localizar detenidos del ICE. Lo visitó en un lugar de detención temporal en el centro de Los Ángeles, donde le llevó sus medicinas y un suéter. Luego vio que lo trasladaron al centro de detención en Adelanto. Pero después de que fue hospitalizado, ya no apareció en la base de datos.

Cuando ella y otros familiares fueron al centro de detención para preguntar por él, les negaron el acceso. Romero recibía llamadas ocasionales de su esposo desde el hospital, pero duraban menos de 10 minutos y estaban monitoreadas por el ICE. Ella quería saber en qué hospital estaba para poder estar con él, tomarle la mano, asegurarse de que lo atendieran bien y darle ánimos.

Dijo que mantenerlo esposado y sin ver a su familia era injusto e innecesario.
“Está débil”, dijo Romero. “No existe riesgo de que pueda escaparse”.

Las directrices del ICE indican que debe permitirse el contacto y las visitas de familiares “dentro de las limitaciones de seguridad y operativas”. Las personas detenidas tienen derecho constitucional a hablar en privado con su abogado. Weber explicó que las autoridades migratorias deben informar a los abogados dónde están sus clientes y permitirles hablar con ellos en persona o mediante una línea telefónica sin vigilancia.

Sin embargo, los hospitales están en una zona gris respecto a cómo hacer cumplir estos derechos, ya que su enfoque principal es la atención médica, dijo Weber. Aun así, agregó, deben asegurarse de que sus políticas estén alineadas con la ley.

Familia sin acceso

Varios abogados de inmigración han pasado semanas intentando localizar a clientes detenidos por el ICE, y en ocasiones sus esfuerzos han sido frustrados por los hospitales.

Nicolas Thompson-Lleras, abogado de Los Ángeles  que representa a personas en proceso de deportación, contó que, el año pasado, dos de sus clientes fueron registrados con nombres falsos en distintos hospitales del condado de Los Ángeles. Inicialmente, los hospitales negaron que los pacientes estuvieran ahí y no permitieron que el abogado los viera. También se les negó el acceso a los familiares.

Uno de esos clientes fue Bayron Rovidio Marín, trabajador de un negocio de lavado de autos, que resultó herido durante una redada en agosto. Agentes migratorios lo vigilaron por más de un mes en el hospital Harbor-UCLA, un centro público, sin presentar cargos.

En noviembre, la Junta de Supervisores del condado de Los Ángeles votó a favor de limitar el uso de políticas de apagón en hospitales públicos para pacientes bajo custodia civil de inmigración. En un comunicado, Arun Patel, director de seguridad del paciente y gestión de riesgos clínicos del Departamento de Servicios de Salud del condado, dijo que estas políticas buscan reducir riesgos para pacientes, médicos, enfermeros y agentes.

“En algunos casos, puede haber preocupaciones sobre amenazas al paciente, intentos de interferir con la atención médica, visitantes no autorizados o el ingreso de objetos prohibidos”, dijo Patel. “Nuestro objetivo no es restringir la atención, sino permitir que se brinde de forma segura y sin interrupciones”.

Pacientes más vulnerables

Thompson-Lleras expresó preocupación de que los hospitales estén colaborando con autoridades migratorias a costa de los pacientes y sus familias, lo que los deja vulnerables a abusos.

“Permite que las personas reciban atención deficiente”, dijo. “Permite que los traten de forma acelerada, sin supervisión, sin intervención familiar y sin defensa alguna. Estas personas están solas, desorientadas, siendo interrogadas —al menos en el caso de Bayron— bajo dolor y efectos de medicamentos”.

Estas situaciones también alarman al personal de salud. En Los Ángeles, dos trabajadores de hospitales —que pidieron no ser identificados por temor a sufrir represalias— dijeron a KFF Health News que el ICE y administradores de hospitales públicos y privados bloquean con frecuencia el contacto entre el personal médico y los familiares de personas detenidas, incluso para obtener información médica necesaria. Eso, afirmaron, va contra la ética médica.

Los procedimientos de apagón son otra preocupación.

“Facilitan, aunque no sea intencionalmente, la desaparición de pacientes”, dijo una de las personas, médica en el Departamento de Servicios de Salud del condado y parte de una coalición de trabajadores preocupados en la región.

En el Legacy Emanuel Medical Center, en Portland, enfermeras expresaron públicamente su indignación por lo que vieron como cooperación con el ICE y violaciones de los derechos de los pacientes. La red Legacy Health envió una carta al sindicato de enfermeras para que frenara esto, acusándolo de hacer declaraciones falsas o engañosas.

“Me dio asco”, dijo Blaire Glennon, una enfermera que renunció en diciembre. Afirmó que muchos pacientes fueron llevados por el ICE al hospital con lesiones graves sufridas durante la detención. “Sentí que Legacy estaba cometiendo enormes violaciones a los derechos humanos”.

Esposado estando inconsciente

Dos días antes de Navidad, Chabolla, la abogada de Peña, recibió una llamada de ICE con la información que ella y Romero llevaban semanas esperando. Peña estaba en el hospital Victor Valley Global Medical Center, a unas 10 millas de Adelanto, y estaba a punto de ser dado de alta.

Emocionados, Romero y su familia manejaron más de dos horas desde Glendale hasta el hospital para recogerlo.

Pero al llegar, encontraron a Peña intubado e inconsciente, todavía esposado de un brazo y una pierna a la cama. Había tenido una fuerte convulsión el 20 de diciembre, pero nadie informó a su familia ni a su abogada, dijo Chabolla.

Tim Lineberger, vocero del grupo KPC Health —propietario del hospital—, dijo que no podía comentar sobre casos específicos por razones de privacidad. Afirmó que las políticas del hospital sobre divulgación de información cumplen con las leyes estatales y federales.

Peña fue dado de alta finalmente el 5 de enero. Aún no tiene fecha de audiencia y su familia presentó una petición para modificar su estatus migratorio en función del servicio militar de su hijo. Por ahora, sigue en proceso de deportación.

Lydia Romero strained to hear her husband’s feeble voice through the phone.

A week earlier, immigration agents had grabbed Julio César Peña from his front yard in Glendale, California. Now, he was in a hospital after suffering a ministroke. He was shackled to the bed by his hand and foot, he told Romero, and agents were in the room, listening to the call. He was scared he would die and wanted his wife there.

“What hospital are you at?” Romero asked.

“I can’t tell you,” he replied.

Viridiana Chabolla, Peña’s attorney, couldn’t get an answer to that question, either. Peña’s deportation officer and the medical contractor at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center refused to tell her. Exasperated, she tried calling a nearby hospital, Providence St. Mary Medical Center.

“They said even if they had a person in ICE custody under their care, they wouldn’t be able to confirm whether he’s there or not, that only ICE can give me the information,” Chabolla said. The hospital confirmed this policy to KFF Health News.

Family members and attorneys for patients hospitalized after being detained by federal immigration officials said they are facing extreme difficulty trying to locate patients, get information about their well-being, and provide them emotional and legal support. They say many hospitals refuse to provide information or allow contact with these patients. Instead, hospitals allow immigration officers to call the shots on how much — if any — contact is allowed, which can deprive patients of their constitutional right to seek legal advice and leave them vulnerable to abuse, attorneys said.

Hospitals say they are trying to protect the safety and privacy of patients, staff, and law enforcement officials, even while hospital employees in Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Portland, Ore., cities where Immigration and Customs Enforcement has conducted immigration raids, say it’s made their jobs difficult. Hospitals have used what are sometimes called blackout procedures, which can include registering a patient under a pseudonym, removing their name from the hospital directory, or prohibiting staff from even confirming that a patient is in the hospital.

“We’ve heard incidences of this blackout process being used at multiple hospitals across the state, and it’s very concerning,” said Shiu-Ming Cheer, the deputy director of immigrant and racial justice at the California Immigrant Policy Center, an advocacy group.

Some Democratic-led states, including California, Colorado, and Maryland, have enacted legislation that seeks to protect patients from immigration enforcement in hospitals. However, those policies do not address protections for people already in ICE custody.

More Detainees Hospitalized

Peña is among more than 350,000 people arrested by federal immigration authorities since President Donald Trump returned to the White House. As arrests and detentions have climbed, so too have reports of people taken to hospitals by immigration agents because of illness or injury — due to preexisting conditions or problems stemming from their arrest or detention.

ICE has faced criticism for using aggressive and deadly tactics, as well as for reports of mistreatment and inadequate medical care at its facilities. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told reporters at a Jan. 20 news conference outside a detention center he visited in California City that he spoke to a diabetic woman held there who had not received treatment in two months.

While there are no publicly available statistics on the number of people sick or injured in ICE detention, the agency’s news releases point to 32 people who died in immigration custody in 2025. Six more have died this year.

The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not respond to a request for information about its policies or Peña’s case.

According to ICE’s guidelines, people in custody should be given access to a telephone, visits from family and friends, and private consultation with legal counsel. The agency can make administrative decisions, including about visitation, when a patient is in the hospital, but should defer to hospital policies on contacting next of kin when a patient is seriously ill, the guidelines state.

Asked in detail about hospital practices related to patients in immigration custody and whether there are best practices that hospitals should follow, Ben Teicher, a spokesperson for the American Hospital Association, declined to comment.

David Simon, a spokesperson for the California Hospital Association, said that “there are times when hospitals will — at the request of law enforcement — maintain confidentiality of patients’ names and other identifying characteristics.”

Although policies vary, members of the public can typically call a hospital and ask for a patient by name to find out whether they’re there, and often be transferred to the patient’s room, said William Weber, an emergency physician in Minneapolis and medical director for the Medical Justice Alliance, which advocates for the medical needs of people in law enforcement custody. Family members and others authorized by the patient can visit. And medical staff routinely call relatives to let them know a loved one is in the hospital, or to ask for information that could help with their care.

But when a patient is in law enforcement custody, hospitals frequently agree to restrict this kind of information sharing and access, Weber said. The rationale is that these measures prevent unauthorized outsiders from threatening the patient or law enforcement personnel, given that hospitals lack the security infrastructure of a prison or detention center. High-profile patients such as celebrities sometimes also request this type of protection.

Several attorneys and health care providers questioned the need for such restrictions. Immigration detention is civil, not criminal, detention. The Trump administration says it’s focused on arresting and deporting criminals, yet most of those arrested have no criminal conviction, according to data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse and several news outlets.

Taken Outside His Home

According to Peña’s wife, Romero, he has no criminal record. Peña came to the United States from Mexico in sixth grade and has an adult son in the U.S. military. The 43-year-old has terminal kidney disease and survived a heart attack in November. He has trouble walking and is partially blind, his wife said. He was detained Dec. 8 while resting outside after coming home from dialysis treatment.

Initially, Romero was able to find her husband through the ICE Online Detainee Locator System. She visited him at a temporary holding facility in downtown Los Angeles, bringing him his medicines and a sweater. She then saw he’d been moved to the Adelanto detention center. But the locator did not show where he was after he was hospitalized.

When she and other relatives drove to the detention facility to find him, they were turned away, she said. Romero received occasional calls from her husband in the hospital but said they were less than 10 minutes long and took place under ICE surveillance. She wanted to know where he was so she could be at the hospital to hold his hand, make sure he was well cared for, and encourage him to stay strong, she said.

Shackling him and preventing him from seeing his family was unfair and unnecessary, she said.

“He’s weak,” Romero said. “It’s not like he’s going to run away.”

ICE guidelines say contact and visits from family and friends should be allowed “within security and operational constraints.” Detainees have a constitutional right to speak confidentially with an attorney. Weber said immigration authorities should tell attorneys where their clients are and allow them to talk in person or use an unmonitored phone line.

One of his clients was Bayron Rovidio Marin, a car wash worker injured during a raid in August. Immigration agents surveilled him for over a month at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, a county-run facility, without charging him.

In November, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to curb the use of blackout policies for patients under civil immigration custody at county-run hospitals. In a statement, Arun Patel, the chief patient safety and clinical risk management officer for the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, said the policies are designed to reduce safety risks for patients, doctors, nurses, and custody officers.

“In some situations, there may be concerns about threats to the patient, attempts to interfere with medical care, unauthorized visitors, or the introduction of contraband,” Patel said. “Our goal is not to restrict care but to allow care to happen safely and without disruption.”

Leaving Patients Vulnerable

Thompson-Lleras said he’s concerned that hospitals are cooperating with federal immigration authorities at the expense of patients and their families and leaving patients vulnerable to abuse.

“It allows people to be treated suboptimally,” Thompson-Lleras said. “It allows people to be treated on abbreviated timelines, without supervision, without family intervention or advocacy. These people are alone, disoriented, being interrogated, at least in Bayron’s case, under pain and influence of medication.”

Such incidents are alarming to hospital workers. In Los Angeles, two health care professionals who asked not to be identified by KFF Health News, out of concern for their livelihoods, said that ICE and hospital administrators, at public and private hospitals, frequently block staff from contacting family members for people in custody, even to find out about their health conditions or what medications they’re on. That violates medical ethics, they said.

Blackout procedures are another concern.

“They help facilitate, whether intentionally or not, the disappearance of patients,” said one worker, a physician for the county’s Department of Health Services and part of a coalition of concerned health workers from across the region.

At Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in Portland, nurses publicly expressed outrage over what they saw as hospital cooperation with ICE and the flouting of patient rights. Legacy Health has sent a cease and desist letter to the nurses’ union, accusing it of making “false or misleading statements.”

“I was really disgusted,” said Blaire Glennon, a nurse who quit her job at the hospital in December. She said numerous patients were brought to the hospital by ICE with serious injuries they sustained while being detained. “I felt like Legacy was doing massive human rights violations.”

Handcuffed While Unconscious

Two days before Christmas, Chabolla, Peña’s attorney, received a call from ICE with the answer she and Romero had been waiting for. Peña was at Victor Valley Global Medical Center, about 10 miles from Adelanto, and about to be released.

Excited, Romero and her family made the two-hour-plus drive from Glendale to the hospital to take him home.

When they got there, they found Peña intubated and unconscious, his arm and leg still handcuffed to the hospital bed. He’d had a severe seizure on Dec. 20, but no one had told his family or legal team, his attorney said.

Tim Lineberger, a spokesperson for Victor Valley Global Medical Center’s parent company, KPC Health, said he could not comment on specific patient cases, because of privacy protections. He said the hospital’s policies on patient information disclosure comply with state and federal law.

Peña was finally cleared to go home on Jan. 5. No court date has been set, and his family is filing a petition to adjust his legal status based on his son’s military service. For now, he still faces deportation proceedings.

Barbara Tuszynski was concerned about her vision but confident in her insurance coverage when she went to an eye clinic last May.

The retiree, 70, was diagnosed with glaucoma in her right eye in 2019. She had a laser procedure to treat it in 2022, and she uses medicated drops in both eyes to prevent more damage. She is supposed to be checked regularly, she said.

During the May appointment, Tuszynski’s optometrist examined her eyes and reassured her that the glaucoma had not worsened.

Tuszynski, who lives in central Wisconsin, had looked up beforehand whether the clinic in nearby Madison participated in her insurance plan. The insurer’s website listed the optometrist’s name with a green check mark and the words “in-network.” She assumed that meant her policy would cover the appointment.

Then the bill came.

The Medical Procedure

An optometrist tested Tuszynski’s vision and took pictures of her optic nerves.

The Final Bill

$340, which included $120 for vision testing and $100 for optic nerve imaging.

The Billing Problem: Vision Coverage vs. Medical Coverage

Tuszynski’s UnitedHealthcare Medicare Advantage plan declined to pay for her eye appointment. “The member has no out of network benefits,” the company’s denial letter said.

Tuszynski felt like she was seeing double. How could an eye doctor be in-network and out-of-network at the same time? She said she sent the insurer a screenshot of its own webpage showing the clinic listed as in-network.

She said that after she complained, UnitedHealthcare representatives explained that the eye clinic was in-network under her vision plan, so her policy would cover the clinic’s services related to glasses or contact lenses. But they said the clinic was not in-network for her medical insurance plan, and glaucoma treatment is considered a medical issue.

Tuszynski was baffled that care for a patient’s eyes would not be covered by vision insurance. She said she didn’t realize that insurers can have contracts with eye clinics to provide some services but not others.

UnitedHealthcare spokesperson Meg Sergel said such arrangements are common, including with non-Medicare insurance provided by employers or purchased by individuals. “I looked up my eye doctor, and it’s the same thing,” she said in an interview with KFF Health News.

Sergel said she understood how a customer could mistakenly think vision insurance would cover all care for the eyes. She said UnitedHealthcare recommends that before undergoing treatment, patients ask care providers whether they are in-network for specific services.

Otherwise, she said, to know whether a test or treatment is covered by vision insurance, “you’d have to read the nitty-gritty” of a policy.

Leaders at Steinhauer Family Eye Clinic, where Tuszynski saw the optometrist, declined to comment.

Casey Schwarz, senior counsel for education and federal policy at the nonprofit Medicare Rights Center, said such complications frequently come up when Medicare Advantage members try to use their insurance at eye clinics or dental offices.

The federal government pays insurers to run Medicare Advantage plans for people who choose them instead of traditional Medicare. More than half of Medicare beneficiaries sign up for the private plans. Many offer routine vision and dental coverage that isn’t included with traditional Medicare.

“We hear from people who choose these plans because of those supplemental benefits, but there is not a lot of transparency around them,” Schwarz said.

The Resolution

After receiving the rejection letter, Tuszynski repeatedly contacted UnitedHealthcare to question the decision and filed an appeal with the company. Then, she said, she called a Medicare hotline to complain to federal officials. She also wrote to KFF Health News, which asked the insurer about the case.

UnitedHealthcare eventually agreed to cover the bill as if the service had been in-network. “In good faith, we made an exception,” Sergel said. However, Tuszynski was warned that if she received medical care from the clinic again, it would not be covered, because the clinic remains out-of-network for such services, Sergel said. “It doesn’t sound like that pleased her.”

Tuszynski confirmed that she is not pleased.

She said she lost sleep over the dispute and felt that it shouldn’t have taken so much effort to obtain a fair outcome. “It’s just been a horrible, difficult whirlwind,” she said.

The Takeaway

Schwarz said regulators should require insurance companies to clearly explain to customers and care providers how different procedures and services will be covered under vision, dental, and health plans. “They’re tricky,” she said.

In an ideal world, Schwarz said, Medicare would consider things like dental cleanings, eye checkups, and hearing aids as basic health care that would be covered in the same way as other medical care. But until that happens, she said, patients with any doubt should call their insurers beforehand to check whether services will be covered.

Tricia Neuman, a senior vice president with KFF, a health information nonprofit that includes KFF Health News, noted that Medicare’s website now includes a tool that can help people determine whether their doctors participate in a Medicare Advantage plan.

“This is helpful and a step forward, but information about provider networks is not always correct,” Neuman said. “Errors can come at a cost to enrollees, unless they are willing and able to take on their insurer.”

Tuszynski worked for 30 years as a secretary in hospitals and at doctors’ offices, so she’s familiar with billing issues, she said. “If I can’t sort through all this, how can anybody else do it?”

She knows her $340 bill was much smaller than the medical debts many other people face. But she said it was a serious amount of money to her, and she was glad she objected to the insurer’s contention that the bill shouldn’t be covered.

“I have a strong feeling about right and wrong — and this is just wrong,” she said.

For 2026, she decided to shift out of her Medicare Advantage plan. She now is enrolled in traditional Medicare, plus a supplemental plan to help with copays and other costs. She pays $184 a month for that plan, compared with paying no separate premium for her old Medicare Advantage plan.

Now she won’t have to worry about private insurers’ limited networks of contracted care providers, she said. Her glaucoma treatment will be covered at the Madison eye clinic.

However, she no longer has insurance coverage for eyeglasses, just a discount plan if she buys glasses from certain stores. She used her Medicare Advantage insurance to buy new glasses shortly before switching. “Hopefully, those will last me a while,” she said.

Bill of the Month is a crowdsourced investigation by KFF Health News and The Washington Post’s Well+Being that dissects and explains medical bills. Since 2018, this series has helped many patients and readers get their medical bills reduced, and it has been cited in statehouses, at the U.S. Capitol, and at the White House. Do you have a confusing or outrageous medical bill you want to share? Tell us about it!