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This is not an insurance issue. This is a moral obligation issue. Where did you come up with the idea that you should have surgery and then stiff the people providing your care?
You had the surgery; you owe the money. Insurance isn't the problem--your entitled attitude is the problem. You are supposed to get your surgery free? People like you who don't think they are responsible for their bills are why the cost of healthcare has skyrocketed.
Unbelievable.
Tell that exact thing to my neighbor with bladder cancer who had great insurance but despite this she had to blow through her savings and liquidate her retirement just so she can owe the remaining balance of well over 100,000.00 dollars.
It's not the people that are unlucky enough to become hit with a catastrophic illness but the embarrassment of this country called for profit healthcare that is truly the disease.
It's attitudes of people like yourself that have been marginalized in favor of actually taking the first steps in ridding ourselves of this country destroying situation.
In response to you I'll use your wording Anifani "" Unbelievable!! ""
1. He works for the health care company, but doesn't know about one of THE most common issues regarding health care: pre-existing conditions. I smell a lie in there somewhere.
2. He went back to the same doctor who he claims botched his first surgery, in order to have a second surgery. Y'know, instead of maybe contacting a lawyer regarding malpractice. I smell a lie in there somewhere.
3. He justifies not paying for it, because he hates the doctor. Even though it isn't just the doctor who creates the bill. The doctor's receptionist, the anasthesiologist, whoever cleaned and sterilized his recovery area before and after he got there, whoever was responsible for cleaning and sterilizing the surgery room, the nurses who checked his heart rate and other vitals, etc. etc. etc. He'll justify stiffing THEM because he hates his doctor. I smell entitlement.
4. He has claimed more than once that his credit score is zero. He says he lives in Florida - which is the USA. In the USA, the credit scores start at 300 for FICO, and 501 for Vantage. There is no such thing as a credit score of zero. I smell another lie.
Summary: this "victim" is making things up as he goes along to try and garner sympathy from a bunch of anonymous posters on the forum, to justify his anger at himself for being dumb enough not to read the fine print when he *signed a contract* between himself and the insurance company, and an agreement to be responsible for payment with the doctor and surgical center.
He is a victim of his own ignorance. Nothing more or less.
I am not asking you to feel sorry for me. I am simply looking for the cheapest and easiest way out of this situation. I do NOT care what ethics or morals go into the decision. Please note too that I was not the first party in my dilemna that stiffed the doctor/hospital. That would be the insurance company. They were the first to play dirty and now I am going to play dirty back.
"I think you are behaving irresponsibly. Deal with it and talk to the doctor who messed up the surgery and talk to the hospital. I really don't understand how a person can be so irresponsible and not discuss the issue with the parties involved." This comment just needs more elaboration on, because I don't exactly see what it is you are wanting me to talk to the doctor or hospital about. I would still be out thousands of dollars even if they put me on a payment plan.
I don't necessarily feel entitled to anything. But I definitely hate my doctor (he put me in so much pain. He didn't even tell me prior to surgery how agonizing the whole thing would be. He treated it as a quick outpatient procedure that would heal in no time. I was in hell for nine months afterwards!). So yeah, I have no moral problem with not paying him for this second surgery.
Keep in mind though, the doctor has already gotten $700 dollars out of me for my second surgery. I was supposed to pay $700 and the insurace was supposed to cover $2700. So he isn't getting stiffed.....entirely.
I get it that you are in pain but you went back to him a second time so which is it, now? You sound so irresponsible.
Why didn't you sue instead? Why, if he is so terrible, didn't you do something to protect future patients?
Why not pay the hospital portion of the bill? What did they do to you?
My insurance should have been more upfront explaining the preexisting condition clause. It shouldn't be a customers responsibility to dig into how a company they have hired will screw them over. Ethical companies should be upfront about these issues, but we all know ethical and insurance are never synonymous with each other.
That's ridiculous. Really. You talk as if you are the victim all the way and bear no responsibility for having not confirmed what you assumed about your coverage. You assumed and it IS your responsibility to learn (you like to call it "dig out" but you see, it is not hidden - it is there clearly for you to read in the contract which obviously you never read) what is in the contract for you.
I don't like our health care system and feel that we are a backwards, so-called "greatest country in the world" which is really in some ways more like a third world nation, not a leader in the free world. But that's another subject...
But now you are so mad and want to blame everyone else but not look at your role as a lax customer.
Tell that exact thing to my neighbor with bladder cancer who had great insurance but despite this she had to blow through her savings and liquidate her retirement just so she can owe the remaining balance of well over 100,000.00 dollars.
It's not the people that are unlucky enough to become hit with a catastrophic illness but the embarrassment of this country called for profit healthcare that is truly the disease.
It's attitudes of people like yourself that have been marginalized in favor of actually taking the first steps in ridding ourselves of this country destroying situation.
In response to you I'll use your wording Anifani "" Unbelievable!! ""
No, Julian!
I, too, feel that our healthcare system is horrible and I am for a single payer plan and feel like you do that the for profit health care system is immoral:
But you see, this guy is a person who, if it were not this issue, it would be another, Mr. 0 credit score, Mr. has no money, Mr. feel sorry for me...he's irresponsible in his attitude towards everyone - except for his poor self.
Tell that exact thing to my neighbor with bladder cancer who had great insurance but despite this she had to blow through her savings and liquidate her retirement just so she can owe the remaining balance of well over 100,000.00 dollars.
It's not the people that are unlucky enough to become hit with a catastrophic illness but the embarrassment of this country called for profit healthcare that is truly the disease.
It's attitudes of people like yourself that have been marginalized in favor of actually taking the first steps in ridding ourselves of this country destroying situation.
In response to you I'll use your wording Anifani "" Unbelievable!! ""
Not at all the same thing. The OP sounds as if he's planning to a deadbeat. I don't know your neighbor's insurance situation nor do you, really, but the for-profit healthcare discussion is another thread
Not at all the same thing. The OP sounds as if he's planning to a deadbeat. I don't know your neighbor's insurance situation nor do you, really, but the for-profit healthcare discussion is another thread
That is correct. Miss that 61 days by one day and you're screwed. My wife became very ill, was terminated from her job in benefits, and lost our insurance coverage, this after 4 years of illness.
I picked up coverage at my place of work within 61 days, more like 10 days. Our rates increased at least 400% and on top of it all the new carrier denied my wife coverage because they said we did not cover her quick enough and that she fell into the gap. I battled with them for 10 months and won the case. It was easy to prove so why the 10 month battle? To give up.
When the economy collapsed my employer went bankrupt. COBRA was not an option because the company no longer existed. I was out of work only 3 weeks but the new employer stopped offering coverage to employees because of the size of the company--small--and the age of its employees. I could get independent coverage, no insurance company would insure her except for one and that was BCBS, with a hitch. That hitch was $1800 per-month with a 10 month delay in using it. That was out of the question. I had to pay out of pocket for her care which almost bankrupted us and about killed her. But we survived because she finally received her medicare.
You each and together did not deserve any of this! My heart goes out to you both!
Times, they are a'changing. We have a generational gap on this thread. Most of the posters are older, have dealt with insurance for a long time, know how important it is to read the fine print and VERIFY - not assume - and accept the flawed insurance system as a fact of life.
OP is only 24. Limited life experience - and also of the generation where, rightfully imo, he believes he has a right to be covered under his medical insurance and doesn't believe it should be necessary to read and parse every single word of the fine print in order to discover any black holes wherein the insurance company can save a few bucks.
It may or may not be that somewhere in his benefit packet the preexisting condition clause is mentioned for those without previous creditable coverage. I've never seen it in my employer's information when I worked. Doesn't mean it wasn't there. I just never saw it or, if I did, don't remember it. Also, not really needing a doctor for anything much ever, this was not something I thought much about. All that said, I read the fine print of everything, always. Guess if I had a chronic condition potentially not covered, I would pay attention and remember. But I'm a lot older. Life has taught me I need to do this.
Years back, before HIPAA, switching employers and going from one group to another could leave preexisting conditions uncovered. Medical questionnaires were de rigueur for decades when I worked and enrolled in group insurance at various employers. I had a relative with a history of cancer. At the time, her husband couldn't possibly consider leaving his employer because of the medical exposure due to her preexisting condition. So, all of us are very aware of that possibility - even now.
I rarely doctor - yet, the few times I have, I've had trouble getting doctors offices to bill properly, cannot penetrate the Chinese Wall of insurance company CS reps, and find third-party providers sending me bills 18 months after the service is performed for some obscure lab work they found somewhere that somehow escaped their billing process 18 months earlier. Last one was for $20, so I just paid it. Not worth the aggravation.
For all those reasons - I avoid doctors as much as I can. Too many horror stories on medical incompetence and insurance issues, too many pitfalls, some of which you never know could exist until after the fact.
I now assume if I go to the doctor for anything, I can expect aggravation in one form or another, afterwards, on the billing and payment end. Stops me dead in my tracks every time I think about setting up an appointment for anything. Do I really need the hassle, later?
Really? What kind of insurance do you have? Unfortunately, my husband and I have been to quite a round of doctors these past few years with nary a hitch re: insurance billing, payments, etc. It all goes quite smoothly. Maybe where you live, your state? Maybe your insurance company? I am flummoxed as to why you are experiencing what we are not. We have been to numerous primary care physicians and specialists, have had surgical procedures, tests, the whole ball of wax: no insurance problems, and I am not talking about Medicare, but regular insurance. We have insurance with a giant group city plan in NY. I don't know what else to say.
RE: the 24 year old OP's lack of experience, I very much agree with you as to how it colors how he handled things and looks at it. On the other hand, when I was in my mid-twenties I had reason to be concerned about my insurance coverage, too, and I remember being very much aware of the pre-existing clause and I DID read over my insurance booklet, in detail, and my contract, as soon as I got insured! So, I don't have the sympathy for him that you have. I think he is infantile in his attitude and it is a character issue.
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