Health Insurance Nightmare
I’m insured by Blue Cross Blue Shield and have been going through an absolute nightmare the past couple months. In May, I got married and started the process of changing my last name (including my with my insurance).
In August/September, I had two appointments – for which my name was changed at the clinic and through my insurance at this point. The first appointment was my yearly preventative care appointment, and the second appointment was to have an IUD inserted. Each doctor I saw was in network, and I called ahead to ensure the IUD would be covered by my plan due to the Affordable Care Act (it was, and I moved ahead as planned).
So – it was much to my surprise when I started to get bills from my clinic totaling about $3,000 for those two appointments (and them noting insurance didn’t cover a penny of it). Upon looking into this, I realized my clinic was billing my insurance under my maiden name. I call the clinic to get this sorted out, they admit to not updating my name everywhere and resubmit my claims. I figured that should fix it, but I was wrong. The claims were resubmitted under my maiden name again. This happened 5 times (I wish I was kidding).
Once everything was properly submitted under my married name, I figured everything would be fixed. I was wrong again. Insurance denied all of the claims with the explanation of benefits stating that the name on the resubmitted claim didn’t match the name on the initial claim. I call BCBS and explain everything to them. They take all this information and put it through to a manual review (they were kind, helpful and understood my frustration). They said they would call me back within 72 hours. I never got a call back, and my clinic still hasn’t received any payment.
Fast forward to tonight – I get home from work to a new insurance card in the mail under my MAIDEN name. I call insurance to see why I got a new card in my maiden name and to check on those claims (since it’s been over a week since I last called).I called on Monday of last week, and it turns out that on Tuesday of last week my employer submitted a name change for me back to my maiden name – so now all my BCBS info is incorrect and now the claims aren’t matching the name on my insurance…again. (because now the claims are in my married name, but my name on insurance is incorrect).
My guess is that when my employer went in to get things ready for annual enrollment, something got messed up in their system and reverted me back to my maiden name. They’ve not been involved in this nightmare situation between insurance and my clinic, but it’s just terrible timing and a terrible coincidence this happened while I’m dealing with this name change situation.
I plan on talking to HR first thing in the morning to get everything switched BACK to my MARRIED name, but this has already added to this mess & made everything so much worse.
I feel like I take one step forward and two steps back. I’ve been so stressed the past 2.5+ months that I’ve been dealing with/fighting this, and it’s constantly hanging over my head. I’m getting so tired and honestly don’t know what to do next to get this resolved. I feel stuck & helpless — especially because none of these errors have been my fault/doing. I just want this this to be resolved so I can move on with my life.
