Being told I need to pay for months of coverage I didn’t have in order to restart a policy.
For context, I started a job in September, purposefully did not fill out the new hire insurance forms because I didn't need my insurance to kick in until the new year anyways. I waited 2 months after I started until the open enrollment period, filled out my health insurance elections only then, and sent them off.
Turns out, what my job did was backdate my open enrollment elections as though they were new hire paperwork even though that paperwork was only viable for a limited time after I'd started, which I was no longer within. As a result the insurance provider activated a policy for 200/month for only the month of December, then didn't automatically renew or anything either because "new hire plans are only for the end of the year." I've tried to point out several times that I submitted insurance elections long after the new hire period had ended, and HR's taken about a month but finally got back to me.
The offer is that the insurance provider can apparently restart my benefits, but requires me to pay off the previous months' bills as well, periods in which I was
A) not even covered,
B) lost medications due to the loss of coverage preventing dr visits for refills and making them more expensive than I could afford even if I could go back,
c) reset my progress on an autism diagnosis by making me have to lose my spot with one of the clinics for that in my city, of which there are few and they are all booked solid months out at a time.
Paying for 4, possibly 5, months' worth of this plan would take over half of my income out for that month, which is something I just cannot swing right now. Every part of me is screaming that something about this has to be illegal, they're literally trying to force me to pay for services that they refused to give me in the past when I called them about this in January. Is there anything I can do here, or is this just our healthcare system in America at work?
submitted by /u/Cale017
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