Blue Cross Medical: Fill & Download for Free

I have triplets that were born at 32 weeks 6 days. All spent 5 weeks in NICU - all just "feeders and growers"…. No major medical issues. They came home the same day. All was good until about 2 months later when I opened the mail and there was a bill for 739k! For the time they spent in NICU!My kids are all double covered. They have kaiser through my husbands employer and Blue Cross through my employer. They were born at a Blue Cross Provider hospital - but APPARENTLY- the neonatologist that cared for the triplets were NOT Blue Cross providers and so they only paid the physician "team" at 70%! (Yes - do the math - we still owed that much at 30% - crazy). At NO TIME- were we ever told they were not providers - so we never even had the option to transfer them to another hospital or to Kaiser!I called the medical group (had become good friends with one of the drs as I spent lots of time with the kiddos in the hospital). Dr told me not to worry - he would talk to his partners and likely they would just "write off" the balance. Wtf?! "WRITE OFF" 739k?!?! But that is exactly what they did!

I see one Canadian commenting about being forced out of hospital early and having to wait for some tests and treatments.My daughter (just 14 at the time) had to have open heart surgery in the US and fortunately we had health insurance to cover it. We were forced to wait until the 11th hour for the insurance company to “approve” the surgery which was an emergency…as if it was something we were doing just for fun. The people approving it were not medically trained.Then, after the surgery, she was forced, by the insurance company, out of the hospital less than 3 days later. I am not medically trained but was left in charge of her care at home. They gave me a telephone number to call in case I had questions. They had to give her morphine so that when they removed all the various tubes and needles inserted into various parts of her body it did not hurt her so badly. We wheeled her to the parked car and the medics lifted her into the front seat of my car which I put into a reclined position. I drove 20 miles an hour so as to not jostle her. She was too big for me to carry when we got home(plus we were not trained on how to carry a teenager safely) so she crawled on her hands and knees to her bed. I slept on the floor next to her bed for the next few weeks.I still feel weepy when I think of the worry we felt at the time.When my other daughter, at age 8, had to have an emergency appendectomy, the surgery was done around 3 am. That same day around 5 pm they sent her home—just 14 hours later. They force fed her jello to prove that her “system” was working. Again, the insurance company insisted upon this. We spent the next few weeks making daily trips to the doctor as she still had a fever and was in pain.When I was a little girl in Canada I had to have emergency appendectomy as did my daughter. That said, the appendix turned out to be fine and instead I had very painful (with 106 degree temperatures) peritonitis and a childhood kidney disease. While I did wish to be home, they had me there for 7 weeks while they worked to diagnose and treat my illness. (I am fine now.)When I was in a car accident in the US and was unconscious for 7 hours, the hospital was sending me home within 45 minutes of waking up. My insurance was not going to cover an overnight stay. As my husband rolled me out of the hospital, the medics who had taken me out of our totaled car looked at me in amazement, asking how in heavens name they were sending me home. It took me 3 years to recover from that accident and I was in excruciating pain. Despite my high deductibles and expensive monthly payments, my insurance covered only emergencies, so no follow up care was covered. One of the many problems I faced was my jaw out of place due to the sheer impact (I was t-boned). I had to learn how to put my own jaw back in place and did that many, many times. Many years later, after sleeping the wrong way or a after visit to the dentist, I still have to put it back into place again.When my mother, in Vancouver Canada, became ill, they took her into the hospital immediately at her doctor’s request. There was no profit-driven bureaucrat who had to give approval. It was the doctor’s decision. They did some surgery, and she was there for over two months while they tried to help her heal.Back in the US, once my daughter with the heart issue reached adulthood, she was without health insurance due to her pre-existing condition, until Obamacare kicked in that is. It was a life-saver when she lost the end of a finger in an accident.I would like to add that more recently my husband had to have a triple by-pass. The insurance seemed good…a $500 copay. Until after the surgery, when they claimed the hospital he had been approved for was not on their list of our EPO hospitals. As it turns out, there was not ONE hospital on their list who did bypass surgery. NOT ONE. They’ve been trying to get us to pay the $100,000 bill. Blue Cross/Anthem basically sold us an empty box. There was no nearby hospital on the EPO list that did after-surgery rehab either, so we had to forgo that.Choosing healthcare soon? Don’t make the mistake we made, of thinking that a Blue Cross/Anthem EPO will offer you all the usual hospitals and treatment centers. EPO stands for "Exclusive Provider Organization" And in our case, indeed it was exclusive..they excluded most hospitals and treatments centers. BEWARE!Meanwhile, we just got notice that in 2018 our health insurance will be $2,653 per month (almost $32,000 per year) with a 40% copay.Yes, like pretty much anything, the Canadian healthcare system likely needs some improvements. But how does it compare to, in the US, having our health care either not available at all due to the high cost of health insurance (or pre-existing conditions if Trump has his way) or having profit-driven companies determining what care we can have or how long we receive that care, I’d say it is pretty darned good. Canadians have the right to always ask for improvements in the system but unless they have lived in the US, raised a family in the US, paid the huge premiums etc, and had their care cut off or cut short, they have no clue how good they’ve got it.And yes, there is probably more of a wait in Canada for non-emergency treatment or tests. That’s because everyone is covered and there are more people, therefore, using the health system. In the US we don’t wait because a huge portion of the population is at home sick and possibly dying without insurance that will allow them to get treatment. When any American says they don’t want universal health care because they don’t want to wait in line at the doctor, what they are really revealing about themselves is that, they would rather a large portion of the population go without medical care so that they can get in to to see the doctor right away.For any Christians out there, whatever happened to “We are our brother’s keeper”?Galatians 6:2 - Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fullfil the law of Christ.I just received this news:California Fines Anthem Blue Cross $5 Million for Systemic Grievance System Violations.Here is an example they give in the article:One example of the numerous failures of the Anthem Blue Cross grievance system involved an enrollee who was diagnosed with a serious condition. Anthem Blue Cross provided pre-authorization for extensive surgical intervention and reconstruction to treat the enrollee. Anthem Blue Cross denied the claim when it was submitted by the provider. In an effort to resolve the issue, the enrollee, as well as the enrollee’s provider, broker, and spouse made 22 calls to the plan. Even after the 22 calls Anthem Blue Cross failed to recognize or resolve the enrollee’s complaint.Under California law plans are required to recognize an expression of dissatisfaction as a grievance, or complaint. Instead, calls to Anthem Blue Cross’ customer service system resulted in repeated transfers, as well as unfulfilled promises that the plan’s representatives would return calls. It was not until the enrollee sought assistance from the DMHC, more than half a year after the treatment, that Anthem Blue Cross finally paid the claim.Click on this link for the entire article: November 15, 2017

Let me tell you a story.My husband and I both have university degrees. But even with our combined incomes, we don't make enough to afford insurance through Blue Cross, Kaiser, etc. So we joined MediCal (California’s chapter of Obamacare) when we got married in December of 2014.Fast forward to summer of 2015.I started feeling short of breath after going up stairs, walking across the parking lot, and the like. I chalked it up to being out of shape.Fast forward a couple months — October, 2015.My breathing problems started to worsen at an exponential rate. Finally, it got to the point where just sitting still left me unable to take a deep breath. I can only imagine it's what drowning feels like. We went to the ER.After a few tests, the CT scan revealed that I had saddle pulmonary emboli — extensive blood clots in both lungs. Roughly 20% of sufferers throw a clot and die before they can even be diagnosed. I was admitted immediately and stayed in the hospital for five days.When all was said and done, the bill would've been between US$60,000-US$75,000.Hubby and I never paid a dime.Without Obamacare, I would have had to choose — breathing and being deep in debt for the next decade, or saving the money and being… Well. Dead, probably.Obamacare saved my life. So, yes. I think it's pretty keen.