Customer Appeal Request: Fill & Download for Free

Kaiser Permanente has over 200,000 employees in Northern California, Southern California, Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii, the Mid- Atlantic States (District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia) and Northwest (Oregon and Washington). Each of these areas are technically separate entities.Like any company, there are some great employees, many good employees, and some bad employees.There are always opportunities for improvement. An average customer will tell 16 people about a bad experience, and 10–11 about a good experience, so all businesses will want to know about bad situations so they can fix it.When you have had a bad experience, have you ever contacted the plan where you are a customer? Kaiser Permanente is constantly sending customer service surveys. Have you responded to any of those? If you put your contact information on the form, they will reach out to you. The only way they can fix a problem is if people tell them about it.If you feel that you have done that or tried unsuccessfully to reach out, you can write a letter to the President of the health plan in your area.If bad information has resulted in a bad care experience or you have been charged incorrectly or you were denied a service to which you were entitled, file a grievance or appeal. Technically, this can be done over the phone, but I suggest that you put your concern in writing. No matter what insurance company, this is the best way to protect your interests. Send it return receipt requested.Most of the time, people call insurance companies membership services and ask questions about things that the members have been sent more than 5 times in writing. If you want to be sure to get the right answer, look at your plan handbook and Summary Plan Description or Evidence of Coverage. Kaiser, Aetna, United Healthcare, Humana and CIGNA all have tens of millions of members. Each company probably has hundreds of thousands of different benefits plans - most of which are dictated by the employers who offer them or State Departments of Insurance who mandate certain benefits. Even looking these benefits up on a computer can require a service rep to log in to multiple systems with multiple user names and passwords and then scroll through 20–30 screens. Heaven forbid they should stop to ask you about the weather where you are… They can get backed out of a system within 45–60 seconds and have to log in all over again and start from scratch. These security safeguards are required to keep your private data safe.When I started in this business, There were 4 or 5 main health insurance companies in my area and each one had 3 to 5 plans. I knew all the customer service reps by name and voice on the phone. You could talk to any agent in town and we all pretty much knew what everyone was selling.I cannot even tell you the names of all of the insurance companies that operate in my state now, much less what benefits plans they offer. Some of the companies offer 6 or more different networks of doctors and hospitals in my state.I make my living knowing these things and I find it difficult. Imagine a 20 year old student working part-time for $10 per hour who is probably not considering the phone call they are answering to be part of a career path. Now imagine that 20 year old is one of 50,000 Aetna, CIGNA or Humana employees, 270,000 United Health employees, or as you asked about, 200,000 Kaiser employees. If you have an outstanding experience, good or bad, please take the time to tell the company, any company, so they can learn from it.