Laura O.

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This letter will be copied and placed on the webpages of all companies. My story begins almost a year ago. My husband ( a Duke Internal Medicine pt) was scheduled for a follow up colonoscopy after having multiple polyps found the year before. In the course of the year, my insurance changed and we secured Market place insurance with United Health Care. This was premium insurance, very expensive monthly premiums and a 250.00 deductible. The providers office did a referral, and here is where the water goes murky. Duke, at the time did not take the type of UHC insurance (compass platinum), so an appointment was mad via the providers office with UNC healthcare. My husband called UHC prior to the visit to make sure the paperwork was in order and was told" the procedure was a covered 100%"). He had the procedure, and received a bill. Part of the bill was covered but 2900. 00 was not. Upon investigation per UNC, the "referral was for a screening, not diagnostic and needed a new number. The provider office said the referral did not need a number and would look into it. UHC said the referral was not correct as well. After multiple phone calls with all three groups and a lot of finger pointing between companies, the bill was turned over to collections, and UNC will not return phone calls. A customer service rep from Duke has also looked into the situation and told us today, everyone is blaming someone else. Here is the sad thing, all these companies advertise "patients first, patient centered care" etc. The patient should not be responsible for making sure referrals have a correct number, should not be responsible for making sure codes are correct. He did due diligence to make sure prior to the procedure that it was covered.
The final disservice and disrespect to the patient is making them jump through hoops to find out no one is accountable but him. $2900. 00 may not be a lot to some, but it is a lot to us. Add the monthly expense of the insurance premiums, for what should be covered and this is shameful.