Insurer balks at paying for ER visits for certain ailments

Jim Burton was lifting a box in his garage last August when he felt a jolt in his back.

“It dropped me to my knees instantly,” he said. He thought he’d slipped a disk. His friend, an emergency-medical technician, urged him to go to the hospital.

At the emergency room, Burton, 37, a resident of Lexington, Kentucky, was found to have a back sprain, with no signs of other serious injury, and was sent home.

He soon got another surprise.