After a serious insurance coverage firm denied protection for a medical flight that would save her daughter’s life, Alexandria McMahon took the story to social media and caught the eye of billionaire Mark Cuban.
Stella McMahon was recognized with T-cell leukemia at simply 4 months previous. Now, a 12 months later to the day, she’s been combating relentless fevers above 104 levels for almost a month; her liver’s overtaxed, and her physique’s too immunocompromised to chase away a virus by itself. The merciless irony of Stella’s situation: as a result of she has T-cell leukemia, her docs at Kids’s Minnesota had efficiently eradicated her T-cells, the very cells she wanted to struggle the virus now threatening her life.
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Her oncologist, Dr. Lane Miller, recognized an answer: a federally funded examine at Cincinnati Kids’s Hospital during which genetically modified T-cells, donated and engineered in a lab, are transfused into the affected person. The process itself was coated. The medical flight to get Stella there was not.
Her mother, Alexandria, submitted a pre-authorization request by way of the household’s main insurance coverage supplier on a Sunday, March 15. For 5 days, she heard nothing. “I called them on a Friday just to try to understand what was happening, like why it was taking so long,” she instructed Fortune, whereas the sounds of little Stella had been heard within the background. “And from that phone call, I learned that we had actually been denied.”
The silence, she stated, was devastating in its timing. “To be denied on a Friday from a major business was quite a hit, because they’re closed on the weekend, and they said that they wouldn’t be getting back to us for 24 to 72 hours, business days.” Dr. Miller, McMahon defined, stated it was crucial that little 16-month-old Stella obtain remedy instantly.
When she pressed the consultant for an evidence, she ran right into a wall. “She couldn’t tell me the reason why they denied because I didn’t have a medical degree,” McMahon recalled. “I asked her to read [the policy] with me line by line and tell me at what point Stella became disqualified. Because when I read it with my eyes, it looked like everything should be approved.” She recorded the dialog, a choice that might change the whole lot.
TikTok video results in a breakthrough
McMahon posted the recorded name on social media, and shortly after, it went viral. “I think within about 12 hours, Dr. Warris, who runs Claimable, one of Mark Cuban’s companies, he said, ‘Mark Cuban saw your video, and he wants me to take care of this for you,’” McMahon stated.
Claimable, co-founded by Dr. Warris Bokhari, a former NHS doctor and healthcare strategist, makes use of AI to assist sufferers and households navigate and attraction insurance coverage denials. The corporate’s mission is to “amplify your voice, combining it with cutting-edge science and policy insights to help protect your rights,” based on its web site.
Cuban, who has lengthy been a vocal critic of the American healthcare system, wrote on his weblog in Jan. 2025 that “healthcare is a very simple industry made complicated,” arguing for radical transparency and the removing of insurance coverage corporations from the fee equation. His different healthcare enterprise, Price Plus Medicine, has equally sought to cut back opacity in pharmaceutical pricing.
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Cuban’s massive credit score restrict and greater coronary heart
Inside 48 hours, the McMahons had been on a chartered medical plane to Cincinnati, paid for by Cuban and Claimable. “The hospital case manager was able to book a medical flight with Mark Cuban and Claimable’s money,” McMahon clarified.
The journey wanted to occur in a single day. Cincinnati Kids’s Hospital didn’t admit Stella to its campus; she needed to stay primarily based in Minneapolis. With Stella related to 5 or 6 pumps, driving was by no means a practical choice. “She could not ethically be discharged,” McMahon defined, saying the household was so determined to get Stella her remedy, no thought was too on the market. “We were considering renting an RV and just trying.” Even that risk was off the desk, given Stella’s medical wants. A good friend of her husband’s who works for Delta had additionally provided a aircraft, however that might have meant discharging Stella with out medical assist and “hoping for the best.”
As an alternative, Cuban’s group moved quick. “He basically laid down a credit card right then and there, and said, ‘ Book the flight, book a medical flight,” McMahon stated. “And we are going to help you fight insurance after she gets taken care of. Stella is the most important.”
For McMahon, the velocity and generosity of the response had been tough to completely take up whereas concurrently watching her daughter wrestle. “We are dramatically humbled. We are so thankful that this happened,” she stated. “I still feel like it’s unbelievable. I still feel like I’m kind of coming down from something that was just so exciting and so positive. And it felt weird being so incredibly happy and ecstatic and thankful while watching my daughter clearly struggle.”
She had no prior data of Cuban’s observe report of intervening in circumstances like Stella’s till the outpouring of feedback on her movies. “I had no idea that this person could do something so amazing,” she stated. “He has the resources, and he has the heart, and he did it.”
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Inspiration to pay it ahead
On the time of Fortune‘s interview on Thursday, Stella was showing her first signs of improvement: less jaundiced, her eyes beginning to clear. She was still running fevers above 104 degrees, and her doctors cautioned that the T-cell study can take five to seven days before showing results. But she had avoided an ICU stay. “Stella is now stable,” McMahon said. “She got everything she needs. We’re the place we have to be, and it’s all because of human connection.”
A GoFundMe organized to assist the household cowl prices, together with misplaced revenue for McMahon’s husband, who works in aviation and has needed to take day off, had raised over $42,000 towards a $50,000 purpose from greater than 870 donors as of publication.
McMahon stated she hopes to make use of the eye Stella’s story has drawn to advocate for different households dealing with the identical partitions. “If I can turn around and give back to people, I will,” she stated. “I will carry this and try to pay it forward for the rest of my life.”
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