Qualifying life event caused backdated insurance which erased out of pocket max for claims from the past

I have United Healthcare and my plan pays for almost nothing until I hit my deductible. I had to have surgery at the start of this year, and so I hit my out of pocket max (and deductible for that matter) pretty quickly.

Once I hit my out of pocket max, I decided to get some things I had been putting off looked at. I also started going to therapy and seeing a chiropractor, both huge for my quality of life but things we could not afford to pay out of pocket for.

My wife had Kaiser and we had our two kids on her insurance. But she lost her job (and health coverage) in August. So on August 29th, I added her and my two kids to our insurance. Then the bills started to show up.

Apparently, my employer backdated their insurance to the 1st of August. This change also doubled my out of pocket max and deductible. So all of the medical, and mental health services I used in the month of August are all of a sudden not covered, and we may end up being on the hook for upwards of $5,000 worth of services that at the time they happened, were fully covered with my out of pocket max having been met.

I have no idea what to do. United Healthcare of course claims innocent. Do I go to my employer and have them change when the insurance started? My sense is that that will not be possible.

Age: 40
State: CO
Income: ~100k combined

submitted by /u/Lifeinbeats
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