I’m not talking about being in the system or getting your insurance card your first day or whatever trite issues you’re contemplating. I’m talking about having coverage from your first day.
Having a 90-day gap in between insurance coverage is a serious pain in the ass and is stupid - you either have to COBRA your way through that period, buy a short-term policy, hope that your previous employer extends your coverage to X days after your job ends, or roll the dice and hope you don’t get in an accident or get sick.
I’m talking about having coverage my first day , too and I just don’t see it actually works except for maybe a hospitalization.
Walk me through it- I start my job today and fill out the paperwork. Tomorrow, I wake up with a fever and puking. I go to my doctor, who participates in my new insurance, but since I have neither the ID card nor a policy number ( and can’t get them, because the paperwork probably hasn’t gotten to HR, forget the insurance company) I must pay the full fee. Which will not be reimbursed , since I am supposed to pay only the copay to a participating provider. I then get a couple of prescriptions - for which I also pay full price and will not be reimbursed because again, I am only supposed to pay the copay.
I might be paying for the coverage from the first day, but unless I end up in the hospital, I can’t use it for at least a few days.
BTW, there’s a whole lot of room between “coverage the first day” and “it takes 90 days” I’ve had jobs where coverage kicked in two weeks after the start date , 30 days after the start date and on the first day of the next month ( that job usually hired before the 20th of the month, so it might only be a ten day wait. dental and optical coverage have taken as long as 6 months to kick in.
Why would it not be reimbursed? If you have health insurance effective on the day you incur medical expenses, I can’t see how you can’t get reimbursed.
Or, to put it another way: I am sure they have provisions for dealing with the delay between when a policy is effective and when you get the shiny card with the number on it.
edit: you also see the hospitalization bit, which is the important aspect. No one here was discussing waiting for your insurance application paperwork to be filed before you start jaunting around incurring medical expenses. We’re talking about a set-in-stone delay period between starting work and coverage being made, i.e. a true gap in coverage.
edit again: mail and paper processing moves faster than 2 weeks, so no one was really talking about some unrealistic 2-week time period in which you got your card (but, again, were still covered)
Because every policy I’ve had for the last twenty years specifically requires that you pay only the copayment to participating providers and will not treat them as non-participating if you pay the full fee.
Or maybe that’s the reason most insurance coverage does take a while to kick in
Perhaps you shouldn’t be talking about health insurance if you really mean hospitalization insurance. Maybe the hospitalization is the most important to you , but it’s not to me.
Seems to me that people were talking about all different dates to become effective- first day, thirty days, the first of the month, 90 days ,six months , someone said they had a enrollment period every six months and I said I’ve had a job where the insurance became effective after 2 weeks and that’s exactly what I meant . The insurance became effective on the first day of the next pay period, which was always two weeks from the start date since new hires started on the first day of a pay period. It was not “You’re covered but the card takes two weeks”
um, my hospitalization is covered under my health insurance.
and, as has been pointed out here, many people have had or know of policies that provide coverage from the first day of employment. so, maybe your conclusion isn’t as sound as you think it is, namely that they don’t cover you from day one because they can’t get you a plastic card or a number or you can’t figure out if you want an HMO or a PPO :rolleyes:
and as for the co-pay thing, that’s a red herring. that contract language you’re discussing is inapposite to the situation where you have coverage but can’t furnish your policy number.
Well ,if you’ve had plans with those requirements , and that’s been your experience when you’ve needed care before you had the policy number ,then could have just said that to begin with. I wasn’t disputing that people sometimes have coverage from the first day- I said I don’t see how it works and I didn’t think it could with the policies I’ve had. Of course, it could also be that you and I have had very different policies and what works with yours doesn’t work with mine.
or the third and better alternative: coverage not starting on day one is unrelated to the logistical issues of providing day one coverage.
many posters have stated the obvious: for higher turnover jobs, it is probably not a good idea to deal with health insurance and incur the administrative costs. there is probably also some selection going on - to filter out these high-turnover employees who seek the job merely for the medical benefits it provides.
(but i’m curious as to why this happens with non high-turnover industries or jobs)