Ask Lemmy

ProPublica is doing a story and was asking for these on Bluesky at least. Wanted people to share their stories.

Mine are all boring shit like my insurance deciding how many relapses of cancer my mom was allowed to fight or them challenging my surgery a month before despite having gotten pre approval or needing pre approval at least once a year for a med I'd been on for a decade.

But a friend had an actually entertaining one, she had trans bottom surgery and they paid for everything except for the "removal of the penis" which they demanded to know why it was necessary

Edit: sorry thought it said health insurance story

Cigna dropped my medicine coverage. I had to to drop two name brands simultaneously to generic else i would be out 4k every 30 days.

The switch was not pretty.
Like, mental breakdown, life changing, never-will-be-the-same not pretty.
That was..8 years ago. I imagine if it was something maintaining my physical health I certainly would have died. I mean, shit, I nearly did. Don't get me started on the arm i broke as a kid, that didn't heal correctly because a narcissist parent(RN) wanted to skip the er wait and had hospital buddies patch me up on the dl instead. A bionic arm sounds more feasible than actually getting it to where I could play strings again without pain.

In theory my insurance covers my weekly out-of-network therapist. In practice, I pay the therapist, submit my bill to insurance for reimbursement, and it disappears into the ether. They claim they'll pay me back within 60 days (sometimes 60 business days, sometimes calendar days).

I've gotten a couple reimbursements in the last year, but I'm currently waiting on at least 5 months of payments. That's maybe $2000 and I'm lucky I can float that through savings.

And this is all supposed to go towards my annual maximum out-of-pocket expenses but the online system doesn't show that, but the papers I'm mailed do.

Oh, and in theory I could go to an in-network therapist but in practice they either don't exist or aren't a good fit.

Edit: and this is with what's theoretically really good insurance, thanks to my union. I spent 5 months not knowing if they'd arbitrarily deny my therapy.

I went for surgery that was to repair a urethral stricture, with the expressly stated reason for doing it as being able to be catheterized in a future spinal fusion procedure. I told every single member of my care team this information, and all knew about the spine instability. A Spondylolisthesis diagnosed by their same hospital system.

I woke up in agony screaming before I could see. They put me in a position that allowed my back instability to shift. I was screaming to drop the bed. The nurse told me to calm down.

When I was finally laid flat, I noted I could not feel my genitals and I could not feel about half of my legs or any of my feet. Totally numb.

I was discharged from the hospital 3 days later with a walker because I couldn’t feel my feet and needed assistance to walk for a proc sure that never should have required it.

They billed me $250 for the walker, and never followed my requests to ascertain why I was paying for a walker that was the resulting need of malpractice. This was sent to collections.

I get phone calls weekly about a walker I should never have needed, and should not have been billed for as “outside of network” because it was not pre-approved for an urology procedure.

Who in the fuck assumed a loss of leg function from an urology surgery? Who gets that pre-approved?

Fucking cunts.

Between my wife and I we make 200K a year. We have a roommate to help pay bills because between her chrones disease and our kids health issues we can’t afford to live. She has been without her chrones medication for 6 months because the humera was causing problems and the new prescription has been in limbo between pharmacies not wanting to deal with it or her insurance and her insurance continually sending her to pharmacies that don’t accept her insurance. Medication that is easily affordable and available in other countries is dangled just out of reach while she suffers.

I went in for a $10,000 surgery. Told them to bill my insurance and I came out with a bill for almost $30,000! Insurance barely paid $7,000 left me with the rest

When I went on a trip to the US I bought a relatively expensive travel insurance as I knew if something would've happened I would be screwed forever.

It did cost me about 80 eur but they claimed 100% cost coverage without copay or any of that nonsense. The coverage was for a whole year but only 60 days after the start of the vacation. It also included legal insurance for medical things with a max payout of 100,000 eur and medical transport back to Germany if possible and necessary.

Did not need to use it fortunately but they advertised that they even covered stuff like decompression chambers after a dive accident. I wonder how much I would've needed to fight them if it came to it but I had a cheaper coverage with similar coverage from them when I went to Turkey. There I got the whole sum after I went to the hospital for a really bad insect sting without any fuzz. But it was only a hundred euros or so.

Fortunately this is the closest near contact with the us healthcare system.

I make over $150,000 a year and I live pay check to pay check because my son has autism level 2, speech delays, and other motor skills deficits. He has some sort of therapy every weekday. He's 13, so we've been doing this for 11 years now. And every year it is a fight to get things paid for.

This year my company switched insurance providers and the speech therapist that he has gone to for 6 years was suddenly out of network. So, I either pull him out and start over somewhere new or do what I did and pay $200 out of pocket every week. Which does not go towards our $13,000 deductible. Next year we're switching again so I'm sure there will be something they won't cover.

I make too much money to get anything from the state, which seeing how I live in Texas, I'm not really sure I'd want their services. Come hell or high water we getting out of this state and if possible this country next year.

Crossposting to [email protected]

I transferred to a new college and learned the first week of class that they required a few vaccinations I was missing. No problem, the on campus health center can provide them. I confirm with them that they accept my insurance, so I go get the shots.

A few months later, I get a bill in the mail for over $3000. Apparently the health center wasn't in-network, so I have no idea what they meant by "we accept your insurance." I layer learned that if I had driven 10 minutes west across the state border, there was an in-network office where those two vaccinations would've been completely covered.

I still haven't paid a penny towards that bill, fuck them. I get daily phone calls from an unknown number, it's probably collections, but I don't know for sure since I never answer it. This was years ago and my credit score never took a hit. I'd rather die than reward these parasites with my money.

I'm pretty sure I have a tumor growing on my hip too. I'd get it checked, but between student loans, insane cost of living, and rising costs of literally everything else, I can't afford to right now. I'm a childless engineer with "great" health insurance and a roommate, so I'm relatively well off. I have no idea why shit hasn't boiled over yet. Makes me want to depose some CEOs too.

I had major depression when I was younger. I couldn't get individual insurance because it was a pre-existing condition. I couldn't afford it, anyway, because getting and keeping a job was very difficult because, uh, depression? So, getting a job with a group plan was also out of reach. I had to research it and treat it myself, which, goddamn right I'm proud I managed.

But now I'm middle-aged, single, and probably will never have the savings to retire. Eat a Grand Canyon full of Godzilla dicks, U.S. healthcrime system.

Canadian here. Had an accident and took a ten minute ambulance ride in Minnesota. $1400.

Had to go to the er for a staph infection, no insurance. In short I'm in about 8k worth of debt to the hospital. I was in the er for about an hour. 8k for an hour get fucked integris, so I never paid it out of principle

Blue Cross denied my claim for coverage of therapy ($125/week) because the address is clearly not a business address. Yes, that's right, my therapist operates from her home, which is a horse farm. So does this mean BC doesn't cover any home offices? Or is it just ones that have "ranch" in the address?

We'll see! I've filed a grievance challenging the denial. I'm looking at around $6000 for the year if they persist.

My wife has a rare disease. Requires expensive drugs monthly. We hit our max out of pocket early every year.

Bye money. forever. until I die.

Sometimes you don't need anything crazy to describe how shitty our healthcare system is.

Bunch of dental work all done with no payment at time of service. Fantastic PCP. Amazing rheumatologist. A 10k infusion every two months costs me $5.

I would probably work for no pay with my medical issues.

My spouse had their lung collapse. Insurance denied it because we didn’t get advance approval for their lung to collapse.

It's been nearly two months since Publix filled my prescription. At the one month mark I sent my refill to CVS instead and they filled it the next day. I have no fucking clue what's wrong.

Worked in insurance for a few months and saw someone with an $8000 deductible.

Was denied life-changing, medically necessary weight loss surgery because my company has less than 50 people employed.

I had to live with a failed gallbladder for a month and a half while the insurance decided if they were gonna pay for surgery. I lost 20lbs in that time because I couldn't keep anything in my body. I almost died.

One health care facility near me doesn't accept patients who work at or have previously worked at their competition.

Had my ankle reconstructed last year and the surgery alone billed for $16,000. A piece of foam for my walking boot billed for $150.

My headache medicine would cost me around $1000/month if I didn't have insurance. With insurance it's $40/month. My pharmacist helped me sign up for a discount card through the manufacturer so now it's only $5/month somehow

Got some medical bills sent to collections before the bills ever reached me. By email or paper mail. Haven't paid any of them and I don't plan on ever paying them because fuck the people who just sent that shit to collections. Also medical debt is dumb and you just don't have to pay that shit. They eventually stop bugging you about it and I haven't seen it reflect on my credit score ever.

A 20 min ambulance ride, with amazing insurance was billed for $575.

My sister almost broke her spinal cord and the insurance gave us the runaround after the corrective vertebrae surgery.

The VA didn't want to cover the cost of my grandfather's leg amputations that were a direct result of contact with agent orange in Vietnam.

The VA doesn't want to cover a coworker's therapy and medication for PTSD caused by being stationed in the middle east for 4 years.

The VA won't release my mom's army medical records because she was part of experimental vaccines when she was in the army. She thinks it was anthrax vaccines, but can't be sure because nobody will tell her.

I moved out of the US and when I had to pay to get a tooth filled my flabber was gasted when they charged me 17 bucks.

I don't think I can ever go home.