Posted by The Crux |
Yesterday, Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher posted about the outrageous costs of her surgery and the insurance company's apparent desire to pay the least it has to (she even included one of her hospital bills).
I couldn't help thinking of a friend of mine and fellow blogger who had major problems with her major insurance company: Woman of Mass Discussion, who posted a detailed account of her experience, based on an inch-thick file that she still has [see My Health Insurance Blues].
The chemotherapy drained WMD, yet had to spend many months going many rounds with many insurance-company employees. Why? Because her insurer kept giving excuse after excuse for why it wouldn't pay the claims. I suspect that insurance companies train their employees to do that, because the longer they don't pay a claim, the more interest the company can make off that money.
So robotic were the denials that at least one employees offered WMD an excuse that she had already refuted months earlier. They also asked her to re-send documentation that she'd already sent. Most people would have given up after six months, especially if they were trying to recover from a serious illness.
Eventually, WMD's claim got paid, but only because she refused to take "no" for an answer. Having worked for an insurance company years earlier, she knew the game. That and she'd inherited someone's pit-bull persistence.
If insurance companies will try to jerk around people like WMD and Jane Hamsher, I suspect millions of people who aren't so knowledgeable or tenacious are getting jerked around every day as a matter of course. Something's got to be done.
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