A Milwaukee man can finally sleep at night after a 10-month battle with a hospital billing error that left him facing a $30,948 bill for emergency eye surgery.
John Blaszczyk reached out to TMJ4 News after nearly a year of fighting with both his insurance company and the hospital over a procedure that saved his vision but threatened his financial well-being.
“All of a sudden, I realized that I could barely see out of the right eye,” Blaszczyk said.

The emergency retinal surgery took place in September of last year, but Blaszczyk initially tried to postpone it due to insurance concerns.
“They said, ‘Well, you do realize that if you do this, you know, you may lose your sight in that eye permanently?’” Blaszczyk said.
His dilemma stemmed from a common health care coverage gap — while his surgeon was considered “in-network” with his Anthem insurance plan, the facility where the surgery would be performed was not.
“I had been on the phone with Anthem, even up until the time I had to leave to go to the hospital, saying, ‘Hey, what else can be done?’” Blaszczyk said.
Despite days of searching for a local provider and facility that were both in-network, and attempting to get an out-of-network referral, Blaszczyk ultimately had to proceed with the surgery to save his vision.
“As I’m laying on the bed in the waiting area for the surgery, I said, ‘You know, I still haven’t received pre-certification approval for this,’ and both the nurse and the doctor said, ‘Well, we recommend that you have it and that we can always fix it on the back end.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, cool,’” Blaszczyk said.
Nearly 10 months later, after dozens of phone calls and repeated emails, insurance still had not been applied to his $30,948 bill, and Aurora Health Care sent it to collections.
Watch: Milwaukee man fights a $30K emergency surgery bill
The stress took a significant toll on Blaszczyk. “I wake up in the middle of the night so upset with an upset stomach that I can’t get back to bed because I’m worried about paying this,” he said.
When asked if he would undergo the procedure again, knowing the billing nightmare that would follow, Blaszczyk was clear: “I’d rather go blind.”
The situation changed after TMJ4 News contacted Aurora about Blaszczyk’s case.
“They pulled my account from collections, they will zero it out on my end. They are taking over any kind of effort to collect from Anthem,” Blaszczyk said.
While relieved about his own situation, Blaszczyk remains concerned about others who might face similar issues.
“This doesn’t solve it for all these other patients that are probably experiencing the same thing but just don’t have the tenacity to continue fighting for themselves,” he said.
Aurora provided the following statement to TMJ4 after Blaszczyk gave the health care system written consent to discuss his billing details: “Once we identified the billing error, we promptly worked with the patient to resolve the issue. We always strive to uphold the highest standards, but from time to time we fall short. We sincerely regret the stress and frustration this situation caused.”
TMJ4 News has also reached out to both Aurora and Anthem regarding Blaszczyk’s concern that this scenario could continue to affect other patients and is awaiting a response.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
It’s about time to watch on your time. Stream local news and weather 24/7 by searching for “TMJ4” on your device.
Available for download on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and more.