My health insurance provider, Cigna, just got bought up by Anthem in a mega-merger to create the largest healthcare provide in the US and totally pwn the industry and stuff like that.
Does anybody have any experience with Anthem? Are they decent? How do their rates compare to other companies?
They had a well-publicized security breach earlier this year … millions of people had their personal information hacked.
From a coverage and benefits standpoint, they’re a Blue Cross / Blue Shield associate, and I’ve always been pleased with the BC/BS network. They’re the largest provider in Alabama, and almost all physicians, hospitals and pharmacies accept them.
My condolences. My work had them for a year before firing them and going back to United Healthcare. Just when we started I knew there was a problem when they delayed payments for my wife’s doctor visits just to make sure she wasn’t covered by other insurance (she wasn’t.) It took three phone calls and several documents before they stopped this crap. I suspect I didn’t have the worst experience - my Fortune 50 company doesn’t change providers on a dime.
I do, but I don’t really have any information you would find useful. I guess it depends on what state you are in what kind of rates, services, benefits and plans are available. As far as I know, they are okay, if not on the high side for rates. It’s all changed since Obamacare.
Not much help, huh?
I’ve been with them for several years. They are friendly enough, but progressively more expensive and clueless about the ACA. In fact a rep I was talking to about my forced plan switch last fall was using the same mostly useless website I was to learn about the various plans. He said something like “Yeah I can help you, let me bring up this website and read you what’s printed on it and we’ll figure it out together.” :rolleyes:
Uh oh. Around here, Blue Cross always seems to be one of the more expensive choices.
Just to clarify:
The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association is a federation of 36 separate, independent health insurance organizations (most of which operate in individual states, or a small number of states). In a sense, think of the Association as a sports league, and each BCBS company is an individual team within the league. The individual organizations license the BCBS name and logos from the Association.
While BCBS offers certain interstate benefits (like the assurance that your BCBS insurance will be accepted in other states), in general, each organization is independent, sets its own rates and policies, and negotiates its own acceptance with doctors and hospitals.
Originally, by charter, all BCBS plans had to be not-for-profit; that changed in 1994. Some BCBS organizations are still independent, and not-for-profit – for example, BCBS of Alabama is one of those, and fundamentally only operates in Alabama. Anthem is the largest single organization in the BCBS network, operating in 14 states, and is a for-profit, publicly-traded company.