I started the day off scared and infuriated. Every morning at work, we typically attend something called “Stand Up” — which entails everyone in the office congregating in the lunchroom to read directives from our organization aloud. Not everyone attends, but it is good to do once in a while to make sure you don’t miss any major announcements that the organization slips in.
Since the shelter-in-place began, we were told to read these daily announcements by logging into our organization’s “intranet.” I am not sure I have ever done this, never mind knowing how to do so from home. But today, our office’s Executive Assistant happened to forward it to us. And I just happened to open the attachment.
On the bottom half of the page, couched between other mundane HR blurbs:
“We are excited to announce we will be switching to a new medical carrier!”
…with no other relevant details.
Less than a year ago, they ended all of the HMO plans under our current carrier, so everyone had to move over to a PPO. I just got caught up on transitioning from my HMO plan to a PPO (and fixing all related billing problems) — and now they are changing carriers on us?
These kinds of switches are extremely difficult for people with chronic illnesses, not to mention coping with the uncertainty regarding changes to co-pays, deductibles, co-insurance and out-of-pocket expenses. I easily spent dozens of hours on hold over the past 10 months trying to understand all of my benefit and billing changes.
I also spent thousands on procedures at the beginning of this year thinking that I will reach my out-of-pocket threshold early on, to get less expensive care (minus co-pays, deductibles, co-insurance and out-of-pocket expenses) during the second half of the year. What happens to that “out-of-pocket maximum” now, given that our carrier will change on June 1st?
Reason 1,277,903 why we need Medicare for All now.