June 22...frustrated w/ insurance and docs office!!!!!!

Hey everyone, hope every one's doing okay tonight. I need to vent. I am scheduled for surg. the 22nd and my doctor's office my insurance company are having communication problems. The bariatric director says that she has sent the info to my insurance requesting approval many times and my ins. co. says they haven't even recieved a call for pre-auth. nor any faxes. I want to scream! I call my ins and my docs office everyday and repeat the numbers for my ins to the director and still nothing is showing up in their systems. I don't know what to do to pust this matter more. I would normally just go sit in the office and watch them call and send all this stuff before I leave but it's a 2 hr drive each way. My pre-op is scheduled for the 21st, the day before surgery and I am supposed to meet with the anestheologist this comming week. I am about to pull my hair out. I have scheduled all my stuff around my date and I don't know what else I can do to speed this up. Thanks for any replies. ~Jessica

If you haven't done this already, call your insurance company one more time and get the name of a contact person that your bariatic office can direct your information to; then call the bariatic office and give them that person's name and tell them to fax the files to that person's attention. This is a little off topic but in my husband and I got married in 1988. I notified my personnel office and asked about insurance coverage for my new husband. They told me since I was already paying for family coverage for my children he would automatically be covered since he was my spouse. In 1991 my husband had a mild heart attack and spent one week in the hospital. The insurance company told the hospital that my husband was not listed on my insurance and would not pay the bill. By this time my children were all grown and on their own. I told the insurance clerk to call them back and tell them I was paying for family coverage and since my children were all grown the only other family member I had was my husband and if he was not covered I wanted a refund of all premiums over and about the self-only rate from the time of my youngest child's 18th birthday. They paid the bill. Then a couple of weeks, hubby got a phone call from the hospital. The insurance company had called and demanded their payment back. I had already sent them 3 copies of our marriage certificate that they said they did not receive. That was when we were finally given a person's name and told to fax the marriage certificate directly to her. Once she received the marriage certificate the bill was finally settled. I said all this to make the point that sometimes you have to have the name of someone to hold responsible before you can get something accomplished. Good Luck and hope I didn't bore you too much. Nancy

Hey Nancy... Thanks for your reply....I will do that first thing Monday morning if nothing has been done yet. I am so irritated with this thing and of course I want to blame everyone but I just don't know where the direction of blame goes. Anyway, thank you and take care. ~Jessica

Hi Jessica, I am the 22nd with you! Ask the bariatric director to fax the info to you (if you have a fax) and then send it to your insurance co. I requested a copy of everything that the insurance co. needed to make a decision just in case they didn't receive it to start with. Have faith that God will bring you through and I am sure all will go well. Try not to pull the hair out...it will fall out on it's own, so I am told! arrgh! Amy

Hey guys....woooohhh hoooh. I finally got somwhere with this after staying on the phone for 2 hours this morning. It is now pending. Still not approved yet but pending is better than hearing, " we see no record of any kind of surgery request ma'am." Anyway, I'll be spending my time checking on this daily and I will keep you all posted. Thanks!!!! ~Jessica

YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH......I just checked on my approval and I have been approved finally. I just want to shout. I am soooooo excited. The nervousness has now kicked in though. I am ready though. Thanks for the posts ladies. Take care. I 'll keep ya updated post-op. ~Jessica