Insurance specialist

My insurance specialist at my surgeon's office emailed me to tell me she has all my paperwork except for my six-month diet paperwork. Hopefully, my PCP gets that in sometime this week. I will see him on Monday, so I'm going to have to tell him to get those notes in ASAP.

I'm ready! 

We are with you all the way!

I walked in to my PCPs office and asked them to print out everything I needed.  I stood and waited while they did.  Then I drove down to the surgeons office and handed it directly to the insurance specialist.  

I was approved in less than a week.  

I would have loved to do it this way, but I wasn't sure if I was allowed to do it myself. I have an appointment with him on Monday, and if he hasn't sent the paperwork in by then, I might just tell him to give me everything, and I will run down to the surgeon's office myself. That way I will know my surgeon's office got the paperwork, and the insurance specialist can get everything faxed to the insurance company.

I just can't wait for all the "dilly-dallying" to be over.

Your medical records, you are allowed to have them.  

Take something to do and offer to wait while they fax them over. 

Seriously, when we are MO, all they tell us to do is lose weight because the excess weight is such a big health risk and now that we have surgery lined up (the only scientific based solution for MO), they can't get their paperwork done.  MO is a health crisis until you decide to do something about it and then suddenly it's not a big deal anymore.  How long do they make their cancer patients wait until they can get the paperwork done?

As you see, I sympathize with you.  Hang in there, once it gets submitted, things may move very quickly - I was in surgery 5 days after my paperwork went in.  They had the opening and I took it.

Good luck!

Good Luck and best wishes for a speedy approval!  

~Nik

Sometimes you could be charged a fee for them printing out the records.  I would rather pay the fee sometimes than wait for them to fax.

Yes, there can be a fee, but the amount they are allowed to charge is very limited under HIPAA.  They may only charge for the actual cost of printing them or copying them to a disk or drive.  So, the cost of the paper, the removable device or other direct cost of handing them to you.  They cannot charge for the labor cost of copying or gathering them, the cost of the equipment or other indirect costs.  If your physician is charging more than that, then they are in violation of HIPAA (can you tell that I am a Privacy Officer?).