Escapades in Adulting - Insurance

One of the necessities of being an adult is having insurance.  Actually it is not as much a necessity as it is a luxury in this country.  Thousands upon thousands of people do not have insurance for one reason or another.  And there have been times in my life that I was one of those people.  Of course, it is at those times when I worried most about getting sick, but luckily I never did.  Growing up and into young adulthood, I had insurance through my parents.  Also, being in school gave me the opportunity for insurance.  My first full time job generously paid for my insurance.  Then, when I went back to school to finish my degree, I had insurance again through school.  

When I graduated I was able to keep my school insurance for a few months, but that ended before I found full time employment.  That was stressful just knowing that safety net was not in place.  However, I finally did get a job and after three months' employment, I was able to get insurance again.  This was in January of 2018.  I never really needed to use it but I paid roughly $100 per paycheck for it.  Fast forward to March of 2020, just before the pandemic really hit.  I started as a new patient with a wonderful doctor because I discovered, at work, that my BP was very high and I needed to get that under control.  I accidentally took an old insurance card with me.  Oops.  No problem, they told me, I could send the information over as soon as I got it.  I faxed them the current information later on that afternoon.  Easy as can be, right?  Wrong!!

They were told by the insurance company that the account was inactive.  Hmmmmm ok.  The same thing happened to the next 2 doctors I went to.  They all got the same response that the insurance was inactive.  I sat in one my superior's office at work while we called the insurance broker who said that everything was up to date and active and had no idea why this was happening.  So, then I begin to get a series of bills from the doctors.  Of course they want to be paid for their services....who doesn't?  Yet each bill I received all had the same message:  insurance not available at time of service.  Now, mind you, I'm starting to get angry because I've been paying someone a lot of money to be "not available".  

My HR has gotten involved, going above duty to help me with this.  Corporate HR has gotten involved as well.  And yet, everyone is giving us all the runaround.  My dermatologist office's billing got their claim denied 3 times and the last attempt they made, the very nice woman was transferred by BC/BS 4 times during her call and each person she talked to said they'd never heard of me and I was not one of their clients?

So, now I'm sitting on about $2000 worth of medical bills that are coming past due.  Cone Health has begun calling from their billing dept so collections are just around the corner if I cannot get this fixed in time.  It's very frustrating to say the least.  It makes me think I just try my luck with my BP and hope nature will take care of it.

In the meantime, I would like the over five thousand dollars I have paid over the last 32 months.  The money had to go somewhere, right?  It needs to come back to me.  Anyway, that's my insurance tale for right now.  Hopefully I can update soon with a happy ending to this situation.

Cheers!