SUGAR LAND, Texas \u2013 A Sugar Land mother is taking her family\u2019s battle with health insurance to the Texas Capitol, hoping to change state law so other children don\u2019t face the same obstacles her daughter has.<\/p>\n
Stacy Zwerneman\u2019s daughter, Lela, suffers from autoimmune encephalitis \u2014 a rare neuroinflammatory condition where the immune system mistakenly attacks healthy brain cells. Lela\u2019s doctors say she needs regular infusions to manage the disease, but the family\u2019s insurance company has repeatedly denied coverage.<\/p>\n
\u201cA family cannot pay $30,000 every four weeks out of pocket. This is why you have insurance,\u201d Stacy said.<\/p>\n
A months-long battle with insurance<\/p>\n
For nearly five months, the Zwerneman family went back and forth with their insurance provider, facing denial after denial while Lela\u2019s condition worsened.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe can\u2019t go to school. She\u2019s on homebound. We end up in the ER two times,\u201d Stacy said.<\/p>\n
The repeated denials pushed Stacy to look beyond her own family\u2019s situation and toward a legislative solution.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s kind of where our coverage act is coming in, explaining to the legislators that eventual care is not the same as timely access care,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Texas Pediatric Neuroinflammatory Coverage Act<\/p>\n
The proposed legislation is called the Texas Pediatric Neuroinflammatory Coverage Act. State Rep. Suleman Lalani of the 76th District is serving as the House author of the bill, which already has the backing of more than 100 healthcare professionals.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are managing a complication that can be prevented. We are pennywise and pound foolish in healthcare. I think we need to be more proactive rather than reactive,\u201d Lalani said.<\/p>\n
The bill draws on research compiled by the Pediatric Acute-Onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome, or PANS, Advisory Council \u2014 a committee created through Texas House Bill 2783. According to data from the council, approximately 11,000 Texas children are diagnosed annually with one of these types of neuroinflammatory diseases.<\/p>\n
\u201cTexas has studied the problem, and now we\u2019re saying we need to act on this problem. So we\u2019re using their report kind of as the groundwork for our proposed legislation,\u201d Stacy said.<\/p>\n
Long-term costs of inaction<\/p>\n
Stacy argues that denying timely treatment doesn\u2019t just harm children \u2014 it ultimately costs the state more in the long run.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen these kids don\u2019t get treatment, they end up on disability, and then that\u2019s costing the state,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
With the bill already in the filing process and backed by a lawmaker who has practiced medicine for 30 years, Stacy says she won\u2019t stop advocating until children across Texas no longer face hospitalizations for conditions she believes are preventable.<\/p>\n
Awareness events are scheduled at the Capitol this Friday.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SUGAR LAND, Texas \u2013 A Sugar Land mother is taking her family\u2019s battle with health insurance to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[156915,156911,156913,156914,27,29,28,156916,156912],"class_list":["post-458513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-autoimmune-encephalitis","tag-child-healthcare-policy-texas","tag-medical-advocacy-sugar-land","tag-pans-legislation-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-texas-pediatric-neuroinflammatory-coverage-act","tag-timely-treatment-for-neuroinflammatory-diseases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}