Fun with UnitedHealthcare and retroactive claim denials! (Cross-post fom another forum I frequent)

[Systematic Chaos]

I just posted this over in my weight loss and food journal over on the www.drmcdougall.com website. The place is all about going vegan to save your health and your life, and it works for me. Beyond that I'm not going to say another word because I don't want to hear the usual bullshit that comes up here about vegetarianism/veganism. This thread is about an insurance company anyway!

For the record, I'm Kirk. My wife of 6+ years is Jeanette and we share an apartment with my friend of almost 19 years, Joe.

Here's my post copied and unedited, because I'm just too tired to right now, but I think you'll get the gist of what has just happened to me from this:

I was just getting ready to click my journal and hit "Reply" anyway, but one minute ago the phone rang.

It was from "Clark Coun(ty)" according to my caller ID display, so I picked it up. I'm harrassed by crap tons of debt collectors as it is, so if I don't think I know who's calling I never pick up.

Well, this could have been the Clark County Library District, which Jeanette had just been on the phone with before heading off to work for the day, night and part of the wee hours of the morning. It could have been one of the county medical services or something for our roommate Joe, as well.

Well, lo and behold it's another goddamn debt collector. And it's for me. And I began giving my usual spiel about how I refuse to acknowledge debts with collection agencies and won't be doing business with them over the phone, thank you very much. The lady on the other end interrupts me with a "wouldn't you at least like to know who the account is?", to which I said "fine, tell me but that won't get me to bleed".

Turns out, it's from the lymphedema clinic I went to for a total of about 6 months last year. Turns out that I thought I owed them a balance still of around $300 just in co-pays, which I was going to try and attempt to eventually pay because they were the only medical professionals I honestly felt as though gave two _____ about me.

Oh, no. Nope. This lady on the phone starts going on about a $2,900 and change balance! Since I would gladly stand outside and scream "UnitedHealthcare can go piss up a rope!" from my front porch for hours on end if only someone would pay me a nickel each time, I can only assume that they turned around and retroactively denied yet more claims. Like they did at least my last General Practitioner's visit and possibly some before that even though I was still covered.

I told the lady, just before launching into a beautiful, sublime and poetic string of random expletives, that she could go talk to UnitedPissUpARopeHealthcare about the money and to just leave me ALONE.

And I was going to come here and post in a halfway acceptable mood and try and get the deeper stuff off my chest.

Eff it.

Maybe when Joe gets back from walking to the bank with Jeanette on her way to the bus stop to draw out the rent money, he'll feel like listening to me rave for a while. It's that or find a wall that wants to taste my forehead a few dozen times. I've HAD IT.

Hope your days are going better. Peace out.



There are no bounds to the ill will I wish upon the fuckers who run UnitedHealthcare. None.

I'm gonna go play some video games and blow shit up on my TV or something because I'm just that angry. I need a distraction. I'll be back later to check replies.

And, one final time, this is a fucking thread about an insurance company and denied claims. Not my lifestyle choices or yours. Not my weight or yours. Not my health or yours. Let's keep it that way if we could. Thanks.

[AndyA]

1. I got served AT WORK by a process server once. I was being sued because my

insurance company denied paying something that was indeed covered. I moved shortly after and never knew if wasn't paid until I moved back to the same city. I WAS FURIOUS to say the least.

After wasting time with the insurance company, I decided to let an attorney deal with it. And what do you know! Ooops, they made a mistake and yes, it should have been paid.

Fuckers. I agree with you, every last health care insurance company can go straight to hell for all I care. Single payer for all. And it's outrageous that Congress is laying down and spreading wide to protect the bastards.

[Systematic Chaos]

3. I'm glad you had the wherewithal to stand up and fight the assholes.

Do you realize how many people don't? That's what they depend on to help pay out those huge bonuses and stock options. Fear.

People being afraid.

And they call this playing upon people's fears, and bringing this type of misery upon them, health care?

:rofl:

[Systematic Chaos]

2. Kick and a follow-up.

My wife called me from work before starting her shift, as she always does if she has time. I told her about the phone call.

It turns out that she knew about this whole thing, but basically shielded me from it because we're just too poor and I'm still looking at a long roe to hoe to get into anything approaching good health. She had set the bill and letter of explanation on my area of the computer table, and left it at that. Since I refuse to ever speak to anyone from UnitedHealthcare ever again, and I don't even bother reading any medical bills or collection notices anymore, I threw them away and never read them.

Here's what the insurance did (still retroactively, about 2 months ago -- I lost my coverage through UHC in April). They took it upon themselves to only cover 45 minutes out of each of my lymphatic therapy visits. The thing is, lymphatic therapy requires at least 90 minutes to have any chance of doing it right! You have to be massaged, your affected areas may get pumped, and then you're cleaned up and re-bandaged, every visit, optimally 3 times per week. So they expected me to be responsible for 50% of the charges, plus the supplies, plus a co-pay each visit. And they didn't tell me any of it until after the fact. Long after.

Props to my wife for doing everything she can to facilitate my healing, even if that includes not rubbing my nose in clusterfuck news like this. She's the single best thing in my life, and I would not be here today without her.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. The Insurace Companies are criminals

[drmeow]

5. I spent 3 months fighting with

United Health Care and during that time I had the opportunity to go through open enrollment at my job. Guess who changed insurance companies! There was a delay in starting open enrollment because the State (I'm a State employee) had planned to drop United Health Care and Unite appealed and won, forcing the State to add them back as an option. I hope the lost the vast majority of State benefits eligible employees. Every practitioner I've dealt with has told me the same thing - United is the worst of the insurance companies they have to deal with.

And - isn't United's CEO the highest paid insurance company CEO? There is a very, very, very special place in hell for him. In the hell I have devised for him he's in a "Ground Hog Day" type loop - reliving the same thing over and over again ... and that loop is him having a fatal but treatable disease for which he is denied care and suffers a long and painful decline and death only to come back to life and go through the whole thing all over again ... and again ... and again ... throughout eternity!

[cutlassmama]

6. I read he is the best paid CEO of healthcare insurance companies out there

It's insane and the fact that Americans have done NOTHING to stop UHC from operating as it does should be a crime.