Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Aetna sucks!!!

One of the fun aspects of Cancerfest is dealing with insurance companies. I've had 3 different policies during the past 9 months and most of the problems arose from the wrong policy being charged despite our numerous phone calls. We've straightened almost everything out. Since I've been out of treatment for 6 weeks now, I thought no more problems. But Aetna has decided that I had 'excessive' radiation treatments and has denied payment for 4 treatments at $250/pop. They claim that I was only allowed 4 treatments/week and that was the standard of care. I have never heard of anyone getting only 4 treatments a week. I have heard of getting up to 35 treatments whereas I had only 16. If I send a letter from my radiologist saying that was the 'standard of care' for my particular cancer, all will be forgiven ...maybe. The staff at UM was incredulous at my request. For the record, my doctor was on Aetna's approved list.

Aetna told me that I should have checked in advance how many treatments a week I was allowed. Of course, they never sent me a handbook. I then would have to make the decision whether to risk my life with this especially aggressive cancer and save money or pay for the 'excessive' treatments. Silly me, I just trusted their 'approved' doctor. At any rate, only for 2 weeks did I have 5 treatments as I started the regime in the middle of the week so at worst, I should only have 2 excess treatments.

AETNA IS EVIL-Hope the search engines pick that up!!!!!

2 comments:

Sara Diana said...

Its reading stories like yours that I thank the Lord for the National Health Service NHS. Flawed though it may be, at least we get treatmet as a right and free of charge. No treatment is denied. If you need it, you get it, money is not an issue. I understand that if you get radiotherapy you get it every day (bar weekend) for the week (5 days)

Daria said...

Sheesh ... what the heck?

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