Health Insurance Rejecting Coverage Due to Cancer Diagnosis in 1st Year of Coverage

Hi everybody,

I'll try to keep this short. My parents [64] changed insurance at the start of the year. In March, my dad got routine bloodwork done that looked a little bit off. The doctor said it was probably long COVID, but they decided to get more tests done to be careful. Long story short, he was diagnosed with cancer a couple of weeks later.

Insurance has been a nightmare. They (United Healthcare) asked my parents to upgrade in order to cover chemo, they did. They said chemo was covered, they were just waiting for the claim. Now they accused my dad of visiting a cancer center last year and that this was a pre-existing condition (a flat out lie). When confronted with this, they walked it back but then said: we usually don't cover conditions diagnosed within the first year of coverage.

Is this true and/or legal?

TLDR; Can health insurance stipulate they won't cover illnesses diagnosed in the first year of coverage? If so, any loopholes?

Any help or resources you can connect me to would be great. They are close to Medicare eligibility but no coverage would be close to $1 million in out of pocket treatment expenses until then.

submitted by /u/Friendly_Promise_998
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