LAS CRUCES, N.M. (KFOX14/CBS4) — What began as one mother’s battle to secure medically necessary treatment for her newborn son has grown into an advocacy effort that’s changing insurance coverage for families across New Mexico and could soon impact Texas, including the El Paso region.
Kylene Ramirez of Las Cruces said she learned during pregnancy that her son, Ezekiel Camarena, would be born with a cleft lip and palate. Soon after, she discovered that insurance companies in New Mexico routinely denied coverage for Nasoalveolar Molding (NAM), a pre-surgical treatment used to improve outcomes before cleft repair surgery.
“No baby in New Mexico had ever been covered,” Ramirez said. “We had to fight for insurance to pay for the coverage that other children in El Paso were getting.”…