COOK COUNTY — The day before Christmas eve in 2023, Andrew Ciaccio was up all night trying to soothe his stomach pains.
When he woke, he could barely sit up. Something was wrong.
“It was pretty intense,” he recalled. “I was vomiting and really sweating and really feverish and just really in rough shape. [I] couldn’t even put shoes on.”
Panicked, his partner looked up the nearest hospital: Advocate Masonic Hospital.
Once Ciaccio got to the hospital, a new panic set in. What should he expect to pay for the surgery? Would the medical care be covered by his insurance? He and his partner didn’t get any answers as forms were thrust upon him to sign to get him into an emergency appendectomy, a surgery that…
