There is not a word in the dictionary strong enough to express my current feelings towards United Healthcare. Loathe? Abhor? Despise with the burning heat of a thousand suns? Nope, all are far too kind for my asstastic student health insurance. We used to have fairly crappy health insurance through another provider, but at least I could get basic coverage. Then we switched in July to United, and it has made my life hell. We recently got to fill out a survey on our thoughts on United Healthcare. It asked me to rank everything on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being least satisfied and 10 being most satisfied. I left the entire survey blank and in the comments section said that the scale would need to go into negative numbers to express my thoughts, and then proceeded to write twelve (12) paragraphs as to why United Healthcare sucks so goddamn much.
Nevermind all the things they won't pay for. Let's forget that they still refuse to pay for the MRI I had a few months ago because the neurologist thought a few of my symptoms could be caused by a brain tumor and they wanted to check that out. Brain tumor, schmain tumor. Why should I expect my healthcare to pay for that? Nah, I'll cover that $5,000+ out of pocket, my pleasure. Let's ignore that they declined to pay for my routine OB/GYN appointment. Pap smear, schmap smear. No, let's focus on why I am lunatic-level raving mad at them right now.
Several weeks ago, I started physical therapy for a problem that's been going on for quite awhile (my whole life, apparently). I had been seen by student health for a year and a half, and after poking and proding and making me feel like a freak show, they finally shrugged their shoulders, gave up, and gave me the golden ticket referral to see a doctor with actual (gasp) specialization in the hospital. So, I called to make my appointment, waited the 3 months, and saw the doctor. She looked over my history, poked around a bit, and recommended physical therapy, with one specific physical therapist at the hospital, and wrote out the referral.
I called the Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Medicine department and was (of course) told that said specific physical therapist was not currently taking new patients, and I would have to call back in a month and try again. Fine. Call back in a month, weasel my way into an appointment (there may have been some fake sobbing over the phone to get said appointment), go BACK to the referring doctor to get a new referral because original referral was over 30 days old and hence totally void. I go to the first appointment and discover that what I thought was a totally separate issue is actually all connected -- remember how I
hurt my back and was stuck on the floor for a week? All connected to a hip problem I had since birth, that should have been fixed with surgery (but obviously was not) and now means I'll need years of PT. Awesome.
Anyway, when I go back for my 2nd physical therapy appointment, I find out that my insurance requires not just the referral from the doctor, but also a referral from student health. Student health referring me to the doctor who referred me to physical therapy was obviously not enough. I'll spare the drawn out details, but it involved 2 weeks of my time, begging, pleading, and maybe some real sobbing over the phone and in person to finally get some doctor to get sick of me showing up twice a day every day, and just write me the damn referral. Ah-ha, I thought -- victory is mine!
Then, I come to find out that asstastic insurance will pay for 6 weeks of physical therapy, 2x per week. While that's great if you just had knee surgery, my particular problem has absolutely no benefit (and actually, more potential harm) to going to multiple sessions per week. What I need is to go once a week for a longer period of time. But, of course, insurance will not pay for twelve total sessions. No, they will only pay for 2x/week for 6 weeks. Nevermind that I kept insisting that (6 sessions) x (2 per week) = 12 sessions, and (12 sessions) x (1 per week) = 12 sessions. Nope, I was using that fuzzy math that makes no sense, and had to petition.
Fine, petition sent. After several hours spent on the phone with the Student Health Insurance Office, I get word that United isn't budging. I ask about my other options -- how long do I have to wait before going back to physical therapy, should the problem persist (which it obviously will, as I am 5 weeks into my 6 allotted weeks, and we have come nowhere near to even starting to fix said problem). I am told that this is it for the physical therapy, unless I have surgery, in which case the health insurance will pay for 80% of the surgery and 6 more weeks of physical therapy.
Wait. HOLD UP. What was that? In order to get them to pay for more physical therapy, I need to have SURGERY first? Does anyone else find this completely counterproductive? I could have 6 more physical therapy sessions, which mind you does not them anymore than the person going 2x's per week since I am only going once, or instead, I can have SURGERY? Do they not realize that option #2 is OBSCENELY more expensive? Because we're not talking about some laproscopic on-your-way-in-two-hours type surgery. Oh no, this would be major not-leaving-the-hospital-for-a-week variety surgery. And this is MORE COST PRODUCTIVE than allowing me the SAME NUMBER of physical therapy sessions as other patients, just spread out longer? WHAT THE FUCK?!?
This sounds exactly like the same logic that was cited when the new health insurance decided to not cover any birth control prescriptions at all. Look, I get it. I go to a religious university. Just because I'm a totally different religion does not mean that I don't respect the school's decision that birth control is the devil and they're not going to hand it out to college freshmen. But HELLO, I have the ultrasound which shows the BIG CYSTS in my ovaries that are WAITING TO BURST and you are telling me it is a better plan for me to let them burst and wind up in the ER because of it than to provide me with some birth control? It's not even going to function as birth control because right now, I couldn't even get pregnant if I wanted to! But nevermind that, it's a better option for me to wind up in the hospital than to pay the $100/year they would be paying for birth control.
AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH. Reason #7452 why I should have just gotten a REAL JOB instead of going to graduate school. My friends all have REAL INSURANCE that pays for REAL PROCEDURES when necessary. Screw this crap. Send the bill collection agencies after me for my MRI fees, I don't even care anymore.
