Jan and Bill Bruner have taken several cruises.
The La Mesa couple, who are about to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary, get excited even talking about going on a cruise.
“Oh yes, we love to cruise, yes,” they told NBC 7 Responds in unison during a August interview.
But a medical emergency while on a cruise up the Eastern Seaboard from Baltimore to New England in June 2017 went off course, sending the Bruner’s on a year-long quest to get their medical costs reimbursed.
“I hear this thump and I said, ‘Bill.’ There wasn’t anything,” Jan Bruner said. “I turned the light on and he was wedged between the bed and the wall and he was unconscious.”
Jan called the couple’s daughter who was in the cabin one door down from them.
“She came over and he was just, he was just out.”
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Crews took bill to the cruise ship’s medical facility. Not long after Bill woke up as if nothing had happened.
Physicians ran tests but found nothing was wrong. But despite the clean bill of health for Bill, doctors said he wasn’t fit to finish the cruise and needed to be evaluated at Tufts Hospital in Boston.
“But, of course, I had to pay the bill in order to get off the ship,” Jan said.
Jan paid more than $3,400 for Bill’s tests and medical care and the couple were transported to the hospital where they stayed overnight.
In July 2017, after returning to their home in La Mesa, Jan submitted a claim to their medical insurance provider, Kaiser Permanente.
Months passed and Jan hadn’t heard anything.
“It was that October when I went, ‘wait a minute I haven’t heard from them yet,” said Jan.
Jan got on the phone. She said that a representative from Kaiser’s claim department told her the claim had been approved and a check would be sent out.
Again Jan waited. Months passed and still there was no check.
“From then until now, I have called them ten times,” said Jan. “They kept saying, ‘oh, yes, we’ve sent you a check. But where that check went, I have no idea.”
That’s when Jan decided to call NBC 7 Responds for help.
NBC 7 Responds reached out to Kaiser.
Days later, said Jan, a representative from Kaiser told her that a new check was on its way.
“Because of you guys, they said they would overnight it and that’s when this came,” Jan said as she held a FedEx package.
“Not only did we get reimbursed but they paid us interest. There was over $100 in interest on the check.”
In a statement, Kaiser spokesperson Elita Fielder said that she was unable to comment on specific cases. However, added Fielder, “For each of our members, their health and well-being is our mission. Any time we may have failed to meet our quality and service standards we work to immediately fix it and, importantly, understand what happened to ensure it does not happen in the future.”
