Text 11248, 76 rader
Skriven 2007-01-31 19:12:55 av Wesley Struebing (14685.babylon5)
     Kommentar till en text av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Ärende: Re: A quick note from your hosts
========================================
On Wed, 31 Jan 2007 02:41:47 GMT, Amy Guskin <aisling@fjordstone.com>
wrote:

<snip>
>
>I'm _very_ glad UHC was good to you and Molli when you needed them!

Us, too!  <grin>
>
>I have a lot of issues with them, but it may just boil down to it not being 
>like Blue Cross/Blue Shield major medical back in the day, which was the 
>Cadillac of health coverage.  I miss their coverage, but I don't miss the 
>filling out of paperwork!
>
>One thing I dislike about all the plans is the fact that they make it 
>cost-prohibitive for you to use a local pharmacy for your ongoing 
>prescriptions.  So, you get those meds from the mail order house, but then 
>something happens and you need an 'on-demand' prescription for something in a 
>hurry (dermatological/allergy emergency, unforeseen mishap that lands you in 
>the ER, sudden illness, etc.).  Then your prescriptions aren't all in one 
>place, which means you're potentially at risk for a bad combination of meds 
>(because you don't have a single pharmacist cross-checking everything you're 
>taking).  In general, it's preferable (IMHO) to have a local pharmacist, 
>someone whose face you know and with whom you're comfortable asking 
>questions.

I remember that.  Now, since all scripts go through medco (of sorts),
the local pharmacy knows what other meds I (or whoever) take.  It is a
goodthing (tm).
>
>But the biggest specific thing that made me not a fan was a simple phone call 
>that turned into a near-aneurysm right before my second shoulder replacement. 
> I had called them about something very minor, just two weeks before I was 
>due to go into the hospital.  Now, I'm fairly obsessive and careful, and I 
>had done everything necessary to get the paperwork in order, all "t"s crossed 
>and "i"s dotted, before that point.  And the person I was speaking to, 
>instead of answering my simple question, proceeded to tell me that my surgery 
>wasn't covered, and that neither my doctor nor the hospital were in network.  
>I started out calmly, telling her that I thought she was mistaken, and I made 
>sure she had my correct patient ID and all that nonsense.  This went on for 
>quite some time before I started yelling, and by the time I hung up I was 
>convinced I was either going to have to cancel my surgery or be out something 
>like $80,000 for it.  When I'd had some time to calm down, I called again and 
>immediately asked for a supervisor, went through the entire story with her, 
>and found out that the person I'd spoken to was...simply mistaken.  
>Just...wrong.  I had nearly had a stroke, thought I was going to have to 
>cancel my surgery (and at this point the top of the bone was necrotic, which 
>means _dying_, and that's not good!), and they weren't even all that 
>apologetic!  I mean, that was a pretty serious mistake to have made, and 
>someone who was less tenacious than me might have simply assumed they were 
>screwed, and cancelled their surgery.  So, UHC is not my favorite company.
>
I've heard that, and, frankly, when we first saw that UHC would be our
provider through work, we were SERIOUSLY considering private insurance
(somehow...)

The only group in this state with a worse reputation is/was Kaiser
Permanente (which is here is strictly an HMO)  In fact, it was Kaiser
that billed us the $15,000 (it was a Kaiser physician who was
attending - and he was good, really...) incorrectly.  And who had to
swallow the error.

Now, elsewhere, Kaiser has a decent reputation.

Go, figure.
>Amy

--

Wes Struebing

I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America,
and to the republic which it established, one nation from many peoples,
promising liberty and justice for all.
--- SBBSecho 2.12-Win32
 * Origin: Time Warp of the Future BBS - Home of League 10 (1:14/400)