The LA Times says that doctors are objecting to a letter sent by Blue Cross of California requesting that the docs help “indentify members who have failed to disclose medical conditions on their application that may be considered pre-existing.”
insurance
Fighting Back Against Insurance Company Leads To $856 Refund
By 2.12.08
Reader Robert used the Consumerist’s Ultimate Guide To Fighting Back to get an $856 refund from another driver’s insurance company.
Humana Delays 93 Year Old's Medicine For 3 Weeks
By 2.11.08
John writes:
Had a problem with my Mom’s Medicare Part D Prescription Drug plan with Humana. Their mail order pharmacy (RightSource) advertises a two-week turnaround from date of sending-in an order to receipt of medications. However after three weeks, RightSource had not acknowledged receipt of the order. A RightSource phone rep said the logging-in of orders was being delayed by two to three weeks due to heavy volume. This delay — in the case of meds for a 93 year-old lady — was unacceptable.
Walmart To Partner With Hospitals, Open More In-Store Clinics
By 2.7.08
The first of the new Clinic at Wal-Mart walk-in centers, as they will be called, is to open in Little Rock, Ark., in April and be run by nurse practitioners employed by the St. Vincent Health System, a three-hospital group in central Arkansas.
Americans Saving Money By Getting Dental Work In Mexico
By 2.6.08
Americans already save money by purchasing prescription drugs from Canada and getting plastic surgery in South America.
BMW Catches Fire, Everyone Tries Not To Pay For It
By 2.6.08
Poor guy. Buys a 2000 540 Bimmer and while he’s driving home, it catches on fire. Some sort of thermostat failure. At first, he was screwed. Commerce, his insurance company, wouldn’t pay for it because they say they don’t cover mechanical failure, and there was no flame. “No flame, no claim,” was their clever explanation. BMW said there were no recalls or faulty parts for that model and so they weren’t going to do anything either. Then the BMW owner posted his complaints on an online message board, got a lawyer, and filed a complaint with the State Insurance Commission. All of a sudden, magically BMW now sends out an engineer to the guy’s house and found that yes, the car had failed. BMW offered him enough of a settlement that he no longer feels queasy about buying BMMs in the future. Ah, the power of putting your dukes up.
Obese And Smokers Cheaper For Society To Treat
By 2.6.08
A new study shows that overweight people and smokers aren’t actually the big drain on the health care system we’ve thought them to be. Actually, it’s the skinny healthy people! Reports the AP:
The researchers found that from age 20 to 56, obese people racked up the most expensive health costs. But because both the smokers and the obese people died sooner than the healthy group, it cost less to treat them in the long run.
Emphasis added. Should society being try to help out those addicted to food and cigarettes? Yes, but we shouldn’t do it because we think we’re saving money.
Aetna Doesn't Want To Cover Colonoscopy Anaesthesia
By 2.5.08
Aetna Insurance doesn’t want to cover propofol anesthesia during colonoscopies. They say general sedation works just as well and is cheaper. Doctors says that propofol lets them tell their patients that they won’t experience any pain, which is important to calm their fears and get them into the needed surgery. Coolorectal cancer is the number two cancer killer in the US. Wonder if health insurance executives ever have to pay for their medical costs using their own insurance system.
Time Warner: A Tornado Destroyed Your House Our Cable Boxes? That'll Be $2,000
By 1.31.08
Ann Beam’s Wheatland, WI home was destroyed by a tornado earlier this month. Then a snow storm hit and made clean up difficult. To top it off, she opened her Time Warner Cable bill and saw a $2,000 charge for the 5 (9-year-old) cable boxes and remotes that were destroyed in the tornado.
By 1.19.08
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Allstate can once again sell auto insurance in Florida, now that an appellate court has stayed a ban from the Florida Insurance Commissioner. Commissioner McCarty is peeved over Allstate’s continuing refusal to comply with a subpoena for documents that might prove that the insurer flooded consumers in hurricane-prone areas with higher rates. [Chicago Tribune]
Hospital Was Filmed Dumping Homeless Paraplegic On Street, Driving Off
By 1.18.08
In February 2007, the Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center in Los Angeles abandoned Gabino Olvera, a mentally ill paraplegic man, on the street: “[The hospital] took him across town in a van and left him in a soiled hospital gown without a wheelchair in the heart of the city’s homeless area.” Olvera, with the help of an advocacy organization called Public Counsel, is now suing them for neglect and elder abuse (although we’re not sure how the second one applies since he’s only 42). His case is “one of about 50 reported incidents in the past 12 months of sick, confused and homeless patients being left by ambulances” in downtown LA.
MedFICO In Development, It's FICO For Patients!
By 1.18.08
From the folks that brought you the credit score system in all it’s glory, here’s MedFICO! It’s a new business project underway with the goal of assessing patient’s ability to pay their medical bills. The system would gather patient’s bill payment history from hospitals around the country and then assign patients a score similar to a credit score. Critics are worried if the same problems with people getting erroneous information in their credit report and then having an insanely difficult time cleaning it up would also affect MedFICO. They also worry whether hospitals would use MedFICO to determine the level of care offered, like whether the person gets a hospital stay or not. FICO scores are now being used by some employers to screen out potential employees, would they use MedFICO to see who might take a bigger chunk out of the health benefits?
By 1.16.08
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Disgusted with their failure to comply with a state subpoena, Florida Insurance Commissioner has banned Allstate from selling car insurance in the state of Florida. [Tampa Bay’s 10]
Owner Still Has To Pay For Dead Cat's Banfield Health Plan
By 1.16.08
Sarah Harper was surprised to learn she would have to keep making payments on her cat’s “wellness plan” even after the cat was dead. She was told that she had signed a one-year contract and would have to honor it. Though the service sold by Banfield pet hospitals is packaged like and sounds like insurance, it’s not, it’s a payment plan. The media kit Banfield sends to reporters explicitly says “wellness plans are not insurance policies.” The contract does say that owners will still have to make payments even if the animal has passed away. However, brochures provided to consumers don’t say anything like that, instead saying things like it’s, “”the best preventive care your pet needs to maximize its life,” and that after you enroll, “your pet is on its way to a happier, healthier and longer life!” Catveat emptor.
Former Amgen Sales Reps Say They Were Encouraged To Illegally Access Patient Records
By 1.11.08
Two former sales reps for the pharmaceutical company Amgen are suing “for lost wages and other compensation after refusing to participate in improper promotion of the company’s blockbuster psoriasis drug Enbrel.” They claim that Amgen encouraged them to “illegally access patient records to induce insurance carriers to pay for the pricey drug,” according to their attorney. Amgen promptly responded that the suits were without merit, and then handed out blister packets of popular drugs, branded desk calendars, and free t-shirts, so everything’s cool.
Highmark "Healthcare Gift Card" Usable To Buy Cigs, Junk Food
By 1.10.08
A health insurance company is touting what some might think sounds like a great idea, a gift card that can “cover out-of-pocket expenses related to personal health and wellness.” Perfect for sick friends and ailing relatives, right? Well a Pittsburgh paper got one of the Highmark-branded cards and was able to buy from Rite Aid: cigarettes, chewing tobacco, Doritos, fudge brownies, Butterfingers, Hot Pockets, Mountain Dew, and a plastic World Wrestling Entertainment World Championship belt.
Will The Foreclosure Tsunami Lead To An Arson Boom?
By 1.10.08
Faced with foreclosure on her Russellville, Indiana home, Christina Snyder allegedly concocted the kind of plan that now has insurance executives on edge.
Complaint Ratios For Top 10 Auto Insurers
By 1.7.08
New York state has released its Annual Ranking of Automobile Insurance Complaints. Here’s how the 10 biggest insurance companies, as determined by market share, compare. The ratio is the number of upheld complaints filed with the state Insurance Department as compared to the company’s total consumer car business. Upheld complaints are the complaints where the state Insurance Department agrees that the insurance company was in the wrong.
