Dr. Daniel Hurley, a top ear, nose, and throat (ENT) doctor in greater Phoenix, never saw himself as an activist – and certainly not one who would challenge convention in his own field of medicine.

But Hurley’s outlook began to change about seven years ago when his basketball-loving teenage son was diagnosed with an unusual condition around both knees – osteochondritis dissecans – and the top sports-medicine doctors advising the family recommended surgery.

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He hopes public pressure will force insurance companies to improve as the devastating effects of their policies are exposed. Recent reporting has indeed laid bare what is becoming a national health crisis, with dangerous consequences for patients, but the challenge of forcing individual companies to change course is even greater when the entire industry is in lock step.

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“One way to shut it down,” said Hurley of the rampant payment denials, “is to apply the same level of accountability that I have as a physician, when I have a practice, to the physicians who are making the decisions on the insurance side. When you apply that level of accountability – you can make that decision, but you’re going to be liable for it – then it shuts down very fast.”

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