How Curaechoice Benefits Became the Steady Ground Under One Member's Long Road Back

As Hollis tells it, his back trouble started with two pinched nerves. The pain progressed to the point that he needed surgery. A few years later came a spinal fusion. Then another. One of the fusions failed and had to be redone.

"I don't know really what caused the pinched nerve to begin with," he says, "but it probably didn't help, all the bending and stuff we have to do at work."

A separate issue in his neck required its own surgery — the result, he believes, of years of looking up at the underside of vehicles at work. The neck procedures were performed by specialists whose practices were not in the Curaechoice network. Hollis stayed with the neurosurgeons and orthopedic teams, however, because they knew his history and he was comfortable with them. That meant those procedures ran through his wife's employer-sponsored coverage.

To make matters worse, the wear and tear on his hip finally caught up with him. By then, Hollis had already spent much of the past decade learning what it meant to manage a body in pieces. This time, he found a Curaechoice provider from the start. "I did my hip through a local orthopedic clinic," he says. "We used them for everything, from the pre-surgery visits to the aftercare. I didn't have to pay anything out of pocket. It was a relief."

Another point of relief: For nearly two years before the surgery, Hollis received regular cortisone injections in the hip to manage the pain while the joint continued to deteriorate and the timing of the replacement was worked out. All of it was covered 100 percent by Curaechoice. "I had zero out-of-pocket costs."

When the surgery was done and the long work of rehabilitation began, physical therapy followed — session after session of structured recovery designed to restore range of motion and rebuild the muscles around the new joint. "All my physical therapy I've done since Curaechoice has been covered 100 percent as well," he says.

It's the kind of care that, paid out of pocket, runs easily into the thousands of dollars. With Curaechoice there were no surprise bills for his family, he notes, from the first injection to the last day of physical therapy.

Additionally, his CPAP equipment for his sleep apnea is now covered by Curaechoice.

When he needed a new mask fitting at a local sleep supply provider, he says he asked the woman at the desk whether they accepted Curaechoice. They had just started, she told him. He gave her his card information on the spot. The replacement masks and tubing he needs every six months will now run through the program. "This was a pleasant surprise."

He had learned the hard way what out-of-pocket physical therapy costs.

Years earlier, before Curaechoice, his daughter had hurt her knee and needed physical therapy. He had made the decision — reasonable at the time, he thought — to drop her from his employer coverage since she was a teenager who rarely went to the doctor. She was still covered through her mother's plan, but that plan had copays. "It was around $10 every visit," he says. He paid them, visit after visit, until the therapy was done. "I kind of learned a lesson not to do that again." His daughter is back on the family's coverage now, where she will stay until she turns 26, with her prescriptions covered through Curaechoice.

"All my physical therapy since Curaechoice has been covered. The hip injections, the surgery recovery — everything. That could have been thousands."

Set against that memory — ten dollars a visit, paid out one appointment at a time — the fully covered hip surgery and two years of injections land with a different kind of weight. He knows exactly what the alternative costs.

Hollis will tell you the pharmacy is where Curaechoice has mattered most to him day to day.

"The biggest thing for me is the prescriptions," he says. Those include nerve pain medication, a second pain medication for his back and neck and hip, a muscle relaxer, a cholesterol medication, and a prescription for an enlarged-prostate medication. Every one of them, every month, is delivered to him at zero cost through his Publix pharmacy. His wife picks up her blood pressure medication the same way. His daughter, away at college, gets her prescriptions covered too. "We don't have to pay anything," he says, "and that means a lot — not just me, but for my wife and daughter too."

Dental care has also been a source of savings for the family. Hollis switched dentists to find one that accepted Curaechoice, and he has had two crowns done since making the switch, both at zero cost.

Hollis estimates the family saves at least $100 a month on prescriptions alone — probably more, given the number of medications cycling through the family each month. He commutes thirty miles each way to work. He knows what $100 a month means in gas and what it means at the grocery store.

For someone who has spent years navigating a complicated medical history — surgeries, recoveries, the ongoing daily management of chronic pain — the value of a benefit that simply works, every time, without a bill arriving afterward, is not abstract. "We're just glad to have it," he says. "I know we're saving money every year. Substantial."

"We don't have to pay anything — not just me, but for my wife and daughter too. That means a lot."