... call Anthem. **ominous music**
I don't know if all insurance companies are this opaque--I'm assuming yes--, but whoa. I am sincerely glad I do not work in an industry that requires me to navigate the maze of health insurance regularly. I think I would be bald from tearing my hair out.
The current headache is that Dirk has injured his knee and needs it checked out. I dutifully called Anthem to find out the cheapest option for an MRI in our area. That's the whole point of a high-deductible plan, right? To save money by helping the patient be more aware of costs and a better consumer of health care? Makes sense to me. Well, long story short, it took about 45 minutes and two phone calls to get the info I needed. Then the doctor called to precertify, and ran into trouble there, plus Anthem sent him to the most expensive MRI place on the list without asking our preference. *annoyed sigh.* So we'll have to figure that out.
And then I called the least expensive MRI place just to make sure their price was the same as Anthem had quoted me. It was similar enough, so that's a point for Anthem. But in order to get that low $400 price patients need to make their appointment through a sister company and pay them $50 for the chance to get the cash price and also be able to submit the receipt to Anthem to go towards the deductible. Otherwise the price would be $1550.
Huh?
Ours not to reason why...
I should say that all of the people I have talked to have been courteous and as helpful as they could be. But the whole system is completely wacky. One time a very nice customer service representative did his utmost to find a copy of my policy so he could answer a question about whether or not something was covered. It took him 20 minutes, and he did finally locate it, but he didn't have a way to send it to me. So he read it to me while I typed out what he said. That way I could look at it later. Is it just me, or should I have access to the full legal document describing an expensive service that my employers and I pay for? The HR department here did not have a copy either, and there was no copy on the website everyone kept referring me to.
I guess being annoyed about all of this just goes to show that some systems do work well and we notice it when one is incomprehensible. And many many people live either in a place or a situation where they don't have as much economic power over the details of their lives as I am used to having. I'm thankful to even have insurance and the option of going to doctors. At the same time, though, today I am really wondering what a more transparent health insurance system looks like...
Or, if it stays the way it is or even devolves more, maybe I should look into switching careers and do insurance billing. Better yet, I could become a counselor and go around offering to hear people's tales of woe about dealing with the insurance! No shortage of work there, I suppose. Maybe I could even bill Anthem for it.