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Share Your Health Insurance Horror Story
Our goal at Health Insurance Hell is simple: to make a difference through your stories; to erase the ignorance of so many in this great country when it comes to health insurance and its impact on ALL of us; to somehow convince both sides of the fence that the status quo is not ok, change must come, and it must come now (and yes, this includes a public option!).There are so many of us who have been wronged by the health insurance industry. Let’s tell our stories. The more stories that are posted, the more attention we can bring to our cause.
Please send a link to this site to everyone you know who has been negatively affected by the racket that is the health insurance industry in the U.S. and have them post their story.
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humana an insurance company that survives in spite of itself
i had just got my disablity benefits comning in when i went looking for a supplement to help with what medicare didnt pay so i called humana after seing their ad on tv
the salesman arrived and things sounded cool. little would i know to later on this guy didnt know jack about his product.
he first told me that the meager amounts i paid for services were the only ones that counted towards the donut hole. id find out soon enough.
so i got lucky and my doctor and drugstore took humana.
while i was enjoying so i thought my great new insurance my agent moved about 600 milez away.
for 3 years in a row ive tried to get humana to correct the errouneous lists of providers they put out . their medical dept operates on the same faulty list they send out to subscribers
year after year and remind the subscriober its up to them that services are supplied by a contracted provider.
in my case i got lucky and almost all my drs took humana
so doctors have listed the local hospital address as their office address and the hospital phone as theirs.
in 3 years my preimums have gone up 300 percent while theyve taken away vision and dental to boost profits
where i live theres only one dermatologist to serve the entire northern half of the state and i called them to see if they took humana to which they replied theyd bill humana but ultimately the subscriber was responsilbe .
come to find out the states manager had made a verbal agreement with the dermotologist but unless you know the dermatologist you wont find one listed for my area. when i called humana after many transfers i was told by a woman shed found a copy of the agreement stuck in the bottom file cablinet i could hear her fellow worker saying ya if i get some time today i type that up.
the state manager was a very hard one to contact. and i was only able to contact her twice despite having her cell number.
so anyway its hell on earth every two months getting your meds, they tell you to call them in a month ahead because theyre so slow. they tell you to use the website to order but the the new one was put up nov 6 2011 and hasnt worked as of january 26,2012
no one could tell me what my meds would cost till about a week before 2012.
2 weeks ago i ordered the meds i take daily to find one had gone up to a 300 co pay for 3 months worth, while humana-medicare says it will be 25.71 for 3 months worth , thank god for walmartand its 4 dollar prescriptions i ll get it for 30 dollars for 3 months. if you decided to buy your meds at a humana approved pharmancy they charge you an 8 dollar per prescription per month (24 dollars extra for each prescription for not using the mail in program. they used to have prescriptions mailed to phoenix az and cincinnatti ohio. since they closed the phoenix facility to taking prescriptions everything has to be sent to ohio from all over america. then distributed to the nearest refill faclilty
no matter what make very sure u haave at least one months of medicine when your send your order in ONE MONTH EARLY BECAUSE THEY ARE SLOWER THAN MOLASSESS IN JANUARY.
THEY CHANGE POLICIES AND BOTHER TO TELL YOU . LIKE requesting a lower price ( a tier exception )which is a request filled out by your doctor and faxed to humana to give you a lower price on meds. last year that worked . this year it changed no matter what is written on top of the form it gets processed as request for authorization and the patients doctor has to call in and tell them what it reallly is (EVEN WHEN ITS WRITTEN ON THERE AS A TIER EXCEPTION)
THE agent that sold me this policy moved and has never been replaced so its just me and humana.com and a toll free number
i do have to laugh tho im sure they are gonna get alot of mad people when they find out their copay is 300 dollars every 3 months and not 25 like the information on their website is
i kinda rubbed it in with the the guy from humana but he was so polite i couldnt force myself to be to rude . my doctors thoughts on humana? THEY PAY SLOW IF AT ALL THATS straight from my cardiologist mouth
if you stay onem and keep complaining and call and turn them in to medicare for whatever problems you have with them they will eventially pay 1 800 medicare. write that down if you buy humanas policies youre gonna need it -
WellPoint routinely targets breast cancer patients
admin
None of the women knew about the others. But besides their similar narratives, they had something else in common: Their health insurance carriers were subsidiaries of WellPoint, which has 33.7 million policyholders — more than any other health insurance company in the United States.
The women all paid their premiums on time. Before they fell ill, none had any problems with their insurance. Initially, they believed their policies had been canceled by mistake.
They had no idea that WellPoint was using a computer algorithm that automatically targeted them and every other policyholder recently diagnosed with breast cancer. The software triggered an immediate fraud investigation, as the company searched for some pretext to drop their policies, according to government regulators and investigators.
Once the women were singled out, they say, the insurer then canceled their policies based on either erroneous or flimsy information. WellPoint declined to comment on the women’s specific cases without a signed waiver from them, citing privacy laws.
Read the full article: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63L2LS20100422
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Colorado Toddler Denied Health Insurance For Being Underweight
hih
From Huffington Post…
The parents of a two-year-old girl in Colorado are unable to attain health insurance for their daughter because the insurer, United Healthcare Golden Rule, claims she is too small. In a letter sent to the family of the child, Aislin Bates, United Healthcare Golden Rule writes, “we are unable to provide coverage for Aislin because her height and weight do not meet our company standards.” According to a Colorado news station, Aislin weighed six pounds, six ounces at birth, and now weighs 22 pounds.
When Robert Bates, the girl’s father, left his former job to start his own business, he was forced to seek out his own health insurance, and enrolled his family in an insurance plan with United Healthcare Golden Rule. “It took me by surprise,” Bates told ABC 7 in Denver. “I didn’t think that her size was that abnormal and that it was something that you’d consider to be unhealthy.” As ABC 7 reports:
A spokeswoman for United Healthcare Golden Rule said 89 percent of the people who apply for insurance get it. Ellen Laden, the company’s public relations director, told the station that most insurers have their own propriety height and weight guidelines.
“Ours are based on several medical sources, including the Centers for Disease Control, and are well within industry standards,” she said.
Laden said she couldn’t talk about specific cases like the Bates’s.
Robert Bates, however, isn’t satisfied. “What we want to see is that insurance companies have legitimate reasons for denying coverage,” he said.
Recently, another child in Colorado, Alex Lange, was also denied coverage, but for “preexisting obesity” instead of being underweight. In that instance, the insurer, Rocky Mountain Health Plans, reversed their policy after the parents of the 17-pound infant gained media exposure. After the reversal, Rocky Mountain Health Plans attributed the boy’s rejection for health coverage to a “flaw in our underwriting system.”
The Bates family is hoping for a similar change in policy. In the meantime, Aislin Bates remains uninsured.
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Lost a toe...and then lost insurance
John
My health insurance was retroactively cancelled by Blue Cross Blue Shield after I was hospitalized for a MRSA infection that resulted in amputation of my big toe. While in the hospital recovering, I was informed by mail that Blue Cross (an 80/20 plan with most of the premium picked up by my employer)was retroactively cancelling my insurance. I was left with DR and hospital bills over $75,000 and then I was terminated by my employer Wal-Mart.
Unfortunately it then gets much worse. The same year, my daughter, aged 25, and a mother of three sons, went to her OB-Gyn to have a tubal ligation, after an error in surgery which perforated her bowel, she had three more surgeries to correct the problems created and has to have additional surgeries. She was in a medically induced coma and off and on life support for three months, one of which was an entire month. Our third grandson was deprived of his mother from two months to six months because of a Dr.s error. It also gets worse, her employer paid health insurance, also Blue Cross, was retroactively cancelled and her employment terminated by Lowe’s. She presently has unpaid medical bills of over a half million dollars($500,000.00) and counting!
While this was happening BlueCross/Blue Shield of Montana paid its CEO a FIVE MILLION DOLLAR BONUS!
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Couple Bankrupt and Broke After Injury, Despite Insurance
hih
From Huffington Post…
It started with a horseback riding accident on June 13, 2004, when Kelly Arellanes, now 50, fell out of her saddle and hit her head on a rock, severely injuring her brain. She was airlifted from the campground where the accident happened to a hospital in Fort Smith, Ark.
David recalls the doctor telling him they could do surgery to remove part of Kelly’s skull, a risky operation she might not survive. Otherwise, she would die within an hour. “Honestly, I said a quick prayer, and in my head I heard these words: do it.”
The doctor turned around without saying a word. David said he recalled taking his health insurance card out of his wallet and calling the 800 number on his cell phone to report what had happened to his insurer. But weeks later, after Kelly had come out of her coma unable to walk, talk, or even remember her family, David got a bill from the hospital for tens of thousands of dollars.
“The hospital said they hadn’t received any payment from United Healthcare yet,” said David. “That’s when the argument started.”
There were also two nearly-identical letters from the insurer. One said the company received word of Kelly’s inpatient admission on the 15th of June; the other said notification arrived on the 30th. David said he couldn’t make sense of the letters until he got on the phone with United.
“A representative over the phone said I didn’t report it within the guidelines. I said no, I reported it on the 13th,” David said. A few days later, it occurred to him that he had a record of his call. He got back on the phone with United Healthcare. “I’m sitting here looking at my cell phone and I’m looking at the time I called you. If you’d like, I could mail you a copy of this phone bill. He said, ‘I don’t know if that’d be necessary.’”
David said United Healthcare then claimed that the hospital his wife had been taken to was “out of network.” He said the insurer agreed to pay for some parts of his wife’s treatment, but the bills piled up.
“There was no consistency in what they would pay and what they refused to pay.”
For instance, United covered $38,511.64 for Kelly’s second hospital room after she left intensive care, leaving the Arellaneses on the hook for $21,702.79.
That treatment, on top of the surgeries to remove and later replace part of Kelly’s skull, involved anesthesiologists, radiologists, physical therapists, a pulmonary physician for a lung infection and an otolaryngologist for a damaged ear. They said they managed to pay about half of the $200,000 they owed. (David estimates the total cost was probably between $400,000 and $500,000.)
“We had stock with AT&T, we had investments, savings accounts, the money we had saved for our daughter’s college, we had a motor home,” he says. They sold the motor home, the investments, and used up their savings and their daughter’s college fund, adds David. They filed for bankruptcy protection in late 2005 in order to keep their house. He says they’ll be making monthly payments of about $1,600 from a fixed income of about $3,200 for another year and a half.
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Small Business Insurance Cancelled by UNH--result $150K bill from hospital to employee unable to pay.
Dr. L.N. Kanal
I am the founder and president of a small business that I started in 1968. For 35+years the business provided first time jobs and Health Insurance to a workforce ranging from 5-40 persons. Unfortunately, starting in 2000, coinciding with the election of G.W.B, we were unable to get new contracts and by 2006 I helped my associates find jobs and laid off all except one person, who was waiting for his Green Card. For the previous 30 years I had provided Health Insurance to my employees (I was already 70+ years, on Medicare and a personal secondary BCBS). In 2008, out of the blue, our company health Insurance provider, United Health, dropped us and my remaining employee could not find affordable health insurance. In the summer of 2008 his teen age daughter contracted a serious disease. A doctor he visited suggested the family take her to a public Childrens Hospital as he thought they had a State supported plan to take care of uninsured families unable to pay their bills. The doctors at the hospital did not recognize the symptoms and put the child through numerous tests, several MRI’s and Cat Scans etc. Also the parents were asked to stay in a room in the hospital. After a lot of tests they finally recognized the disease, which an Indian doctor would have easily and quickly recognized as being a common one in the Indian subcontinent. Once recognized it was a simple matter to get her back on her feet. But not being citizens, just legal immigrants, their child was not elligible for the free care she might have received as a citizen. The parents then received a bill for $150, 000.to cover all the tests, the hospital stays etc. Now at a reduced salary of half of what he used to get when the company could afford it, he is paying off a reduced bill over a period of 12-18 months. . Had his United Health Insurance lasted for just a couple more months he would not be in this predicament. We are still trying to find him a new job but now he has this prior condition and debt to a hospital to plague him when he applies for a new health insurance policy.
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BC won't cover out of hospital birth
elizabeth
I’m pregnant with my first child. My husband and I have chosen to give birth to him at a local birthing center, rather than a hospital. The pregnancy is low-risk, and we believe our baby will get better care with an intervention-free birth. Our insurance – for which we are forced to pay over 600 a month – claims it will cover births at out-of-hospital birthing centers; it also claims it will pay for midwives.
However, despite this, they have an “internal policy” that dictates they refuse to pay for any of it. Basically, Blue Cross/Blue Shield would rather drop at least 11,000 dollars on an uncomplicated hospital birth – which can climb to 30,000 for a C-section – than pay 3,500 for me to have my child at a birthing center. Midwives in America boast a C-section rate of 5% (compared to over 30% nationwide) and half the infant mortality rate of most hospitals.
For an uncomplicated low-risk pregnancy, a midwife and a birthing center is the choice I want to make for my family. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to pay for it out-of-pocket. This system is BROKEN.
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Broken Wrist Called "Pre Existing Condition"
admin
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Great speech!
Impressed American
Way to go Obama! Step in the right direction. My insurance company has been raking me over the coals for years. The way they are raising my rates, I will not be able to afford insurance much longer.
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Cigna Raising My Rates Over 30%
ptown
After spending over $22,000 on my family’s health costs last year (policy plus deductibles and co-pay), Cigna just let me know they are raising my rates over 30% for the upcoming year. 30%! My crappy policy alone will cost me over $14,000 per year. And this is a small business plan. Insane.
JP 12:46 pm on January 29, 2012 Permalink |
Disgusting. Not one health insurance company that I am aware of cares one iota about their customers. All they care about is the goddamm dollar.