Radiance Health Insurance
This month we are spotlighting a Radiance family who adopted a little girl born into this world with all of the odds against her. With Radiance health insurance, she was able to receive top-quality care from some of the finest physicians and surgeons in the country and is now walking and talking nearly two years later. In some cases, people are unable to get health insurance if they have a life long disability, they will have to turn to disability income insurance and see how they can be assisted financially that way.
“In January 2014, we decided to expand our family through adoption,” said Wes Hawkins, who works at Radiance. “We found out about a family through our church that was looking to make an adoption plan for their child.”
“Our daughter was born on in the spring of 2014, and a week after her birth, her biological parents signed the relinquishment papers. We then got to go meet her in the NICU in Children’s of Alabama in Birmingham,” said Wes. She was born three months early, weighing only 2 lbs. 2 oz. and in need of a great deal of medical care.
“We knew ahead of time that there were medical issues involved, but did not fully understand what was going on,” says Wes. Their daughter had serious complications with her lungs and her spinal cord needed to be detethered. Additionally, she had a rare birth defect called cloacal exstrophy, wherein the majority of her digestive organs were born outside her body. “But that definitely did not change our view on things,” he said. “We wanted to bring her into our family.”
In order to completely fix these complex and severe health issues, she needed to undergo multiple surgeries, and would need additional surgeries down the road. “When I started at Radiance, I had heard about our health insurance but never really grasped the full concept of the benefits until we adopted our daughter. Then, we started to see how great our insurance really was,” said Wes.
After researching the best doctors in the country, the family turned to a team of doctors who specialize in treating cloacal exstrophy at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. They realized after speaking with other parents that this team was what their daughter needed.
“With Radiance health insurance, it was the same coverage for us to see a Huntsville doctor as it was to see a Baltimore doctor. Through this process with our daughter, we came across families who would move to Maryland to get the insurance there to have these particular surgeons work on their children. We were just so blessed that Radiance’s insurance allowed us to have that great team of doctors at no extra cost,” said Kelly Hawkins, Wes’ wife.
While at Johns Hopkins, Wes and Kelly were able to breathe a sigh of relief knowing that their daughter was receiving the best care possible and that their insurance was making her healthcare affordable. All of their daughter’s surgeries and doctor’s visits were covered under the Radiance insurance plan. If you are currently on an insurance plan that you are not sure of, then you can always switch health insurance to find the best one that suits the whole family as this one has.
“She is a busy, busy almost-two-year-old now, and that’s because of the care we were able to provide her,” said Kelly. “It’s comforting to know that even though we have more surgeries in front of us and other health obstacles, that health insurance is one less thing we have to worry about.”