Wow duffer what a horrible mess. I’ve always had a special hate for the insurance industry… and for no particular reason, other than it seemed like they were getting richer and richer, while I got poorer and poorer.
Off topic, but I’ll say it anyway: I just do not think health insurance should be tied to where you work. It causes so damn many problems – yours being one of them. My recent experience was that I developed severe asthma early last year, and was hopitalized five-frickin’-times. A couple time for three days. Well as you might have guessed, the insurance company jacked everybody’s rates up big time. And I feel like shit because I know it’s because of me and that everybody else in the company knows it is as well. And if I quit and claims go down, do you think they’ll drop the rates? I doubt it.
Sorry, just needed to get that off my chest.
Good luck to you, and I’ll be watching for you on the evening news!
Yeah, I recently learned for myself that double coverage is equal to or, in my case, worse than single coverage. A couple of years ago, I waited to get on Mrs. Giraffe’s excellent insurance before having a minor but expensive procedure done (those spam emails made some very compelling points), knowing that her insurance would cover 100% of the cost. A few days before, the doctor’s office calls to let me know that I’ll have to pay a $500 deductible. No, I explained, it’s completely covered. Turns out it was my insurance which had a deductible, and I had to use it as primary. So, in my case, having insurance through my workplace was worse than having no insurance at all. Luckily, I was able to cancel it that day, despite it not being open enrollment month, but I was still pretty shocked that double coverage was worse than single coverage.
I’m a bit surprised duffer’s wife can’t cancel her insurance coverage even outside of open enrollment, although I’m not sure why I’m surprised.
Giraffe - since you’ve cancelled the primary already this is moot - but for future reference, you can check with the secondary carrier. A couple of years ago Papa Zappa / Typo Knig had a crown that listed for 1200 dollars. His insurance paid a chunk (700) but said we owed $500 bucks to the dentist. My insurance said “negotiated rate xx (say, 800) and we pay 80% of that (say, 640) so you have to pay 160” (made-up numbers here). And “Since primary already paid more than the 640, secondary won’t pay anything”. Dentist wanted 500 from us - i.e. more than if we had only the secondary. I called secondary. They said that it would be a violation of their contract w/ the dentist for the dentist to bill us that 500. Upshot: we paid dentist enough that he got the full 800 bucks the secondary allowed.
Update. Further and further down the rabbit hole we go. Almost all my hatred of the medical field is directed towards hospitals, so for variety I try to deflect some of the rage by looking to the insurance companies and doctors. Again this has failed me. It’s teh fucking hospital.
I just got off the phone with the insurance company 5 minutes ago. It turns out that both our employers have open enrollment Jan 1. As of midnight 1/01 my policy carries both of us and hers was cancelled.
So basically what is happening is her policy is no longer in effect, but her employer (hospital) thinks it is and is deducting the premium anyway. So I called and left a voice mail with the HR woman in charge of benefit plans and hope to find out this afternoon what’s going on.
What a complete clusterfuck. How did I ever think anyone other than the hospital could be responsible for this??? :mad:
Duffer, this is not an insurance company issue, though insurance companies generally suck rocks. This is all on your wife’s employer. She should be able to opt out of her coverage if she has other qualifying coverage. She needs to contact her HR department and ask for a written explanation of the medical coverage policies, including provisions for opting out should she have other coverage available.
The insurance company (BC especially sucks rocks) can only do what the employer tells them. If your wife’s employer tells the insurance company that your wife has coverage, they have to cover her. Again, her employer is the one fucking you over–and if they don’t have provisions for allowing an opt out, they are screwing more than just you and your wife; they are screwing everybody else in a similiar situation.
Re: coordination of benefits–again this is a problem with your* employer(s). They set the standards for what insurance they want to provide and if they choose to opt out of having your insurance company coodinate with secondary insurance providers, it’s because they wanted it that way.
*the generic you. Almost everyone who has this problem can put the blame squarely where it belongs–on your employer and their desire to save pennies on employee benefits.
Yeah, we did. No dice. Because it was a deductible and not a simple lack of coverage, the secondary carrier wouldn’t pick it up. Anyway, there’s simply no incentive for me to be double covered – it just quadruples the hassle, with no actual benefit to me. If I lose Mrs. Giraffe’s (excellent) insurance for whatever reason, I can always get my primary coverage turned back on. Until then, screw 'em. (Which is of course exactly what they want – the shitty insurance now has to pay nothing, while the good one pays everything.)
Alright, we talked to the HR woman and got her deductions to stop. It was funny while I was talking to her to listen to her hmm and haw over how dire a situation we had placed ourselves in by not dropping coverage during their open enrollment. The open enrollment that was only announced on the HR board in whatever part of the hospital it’s placed (my wife actually works in the clinic. Part of the hospital and connected, but a seperate building.)
She said that “While technically true that the policy isn’t in effect, we still have to deduct the premium unless she can get here RIGHT NOW to sign the paperwork to cancel the policy.” :rolleyes:
So it’s done. We were “lucky” enough that the hospital “allowed” us to “opt out” of payroll deductions for a policy that ended on Jan 1. Fucking douchebags. I’d post what I’d like to do but it’s against board policy and I rather enjoy waking up in my own bed.
Thanks to everyone for listening and offering various suggestions on how to handle this. It’s greatly appreciated.
I previewed and everything!