My new health plan is a HDHP Aetna managed care POS. The benefits summary says no referrals are required for specialists, but everything I am reading on Google says POS plans require referrals to see specialists?

I have a friend who’s mom work for a big bank company. She’s worked there for about 20 years but for some reason is having trouble adding her husband to her health insurance this year.

HR reached out to her saying that her husband will probably not be approved to be on her health insurance because they can’t prove that they’re married. The issue is she’s an immigrant from China and her name on her birth certificate and her marriage license is a Chinese name while every single American paperwork (tax returns, mortgage, utility bills, social security, etc) is an American nickname. So her marriage license and paperwork in America has different names. HR is saying since her name on the marriage license is different from the name she uses at work is different, they can’t prove that she’s actually married to her husband.

She tried reaching out to HR and is trying to show them other paper work that she is indeed married to her husband but no luck. HR also told her to reach out to the third party company who does these audits and submit proof but for some reason that fell through.

Health insurance is especially important to them as her husband has cancer and is currently going through treatment. Is there any other course of action they can take if they’re absolutely denied coverage?

EDIT: for more clarification, she was married in China. Enrollment closes in a few weeks. She looked into getting her name changed and called court. They said it would take 3-6 months so that’s out.