Deny & Delay tactics of disability insurance companies, Avoid paying legitimate insurance claims, No incentives to pay claims quickly, Many people who have been denied will not pursue, Good Morning America gets answers
“A San Diego woman says she has been kicked off her insurance plan due to Obamacare while battling Stage 4 gallbladder cancer.
“I had great cancer doctors and health insurance,” Edie Littlefield Sundby wrote in a Sunday Wall Street Journal op-ed. “My plan was canceled. Now I worry how long I’ll live.”
“For almost seven years I have fought and survived Stage 4 gallbladder cancer, with a five-year survival rate of less than 2 percent after diagnosis,” she said.
Her op-ed, which received significant attention from conservatives online, comes as millions of Americans are being dropped from their health insurance plans because of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature health care law.
Sundby will be released from her current plan effective Dec. 31. She said her only options going forward are to either enroll in Obamacare and lose her cancer doctors, or to start her treatment all over again with a new provider at rates that are approximately 40 to 50 percent more expensive.
Worse than just losing her doctors through Obamacare, Sundby said, is that nothing available through the government-run program comes even close to comparing with what she had through her private insurer.”…The Blaze November 4, 2013
“Insurance Companies Practice Deny & Delay Tactics”…The Deutermann Law Group
I started Citizen Wells early in 2008 to write about injustice, things that bothered me.
I had no idea then it would evolve into more of a “political animal” and cover in depth Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton as well as a host of others.
I did so out of necessity, love of country, a real concern about what could happen and for my grandkids and descendants.
Little did I know then that a great injustice would happen to me a year later that would drastically affect my life and fortunes.
I had all of the insurance in place.
Health
Life
Dental
Disability
I paid on the private disability policy for 25 years hoping, believing that I would never need to rely on it.
That’s the way it works, right?
No one following this site is aware of what happened to me. For several reasons.
What was happening to this country at the time was more important and because my case was ongoing. It still is.
Over time I will explain my ordeal and how it transpired to the extent I will be legally able to.
But first some background on disability and other insurance companies and how they are treating people.
Anyone watching daytime local tv will notice the high volume of attorney ads offering representation to people who have been wronged by companies, insurance firms and Social Security Disability.
There is obviously a problem.
From the Deuterman Law Group.
“Good Morning America has a story that illustrates how insurance companies use deny and delay tactics to avoid paying legitimate insurance claims.
In this case, a woman with Stage 4 breast cancer tried to collect disability insurance. But Cigna repeatedly denied Susan Kristoff’s claim for short-term disability.
Cigna said she had not proven a disability. Sick and with bills piled up, Kristoff says she considered something drastic.
“If I wasn’t going to be getting better, I didn’t want to sink the rest of my family, so I spent two days in bed crying and thinking about suicide,” she said.
Instead Kristoff hired an attorney. In short order, Cigna reversed course and paid her short-term benefits. Then with her lawyer’s help, she applied for the much more important long-term help.
Several people that GMA interviewed for the story about Kristoff said insurance companies have no incentives to pay claims quickly. In fact, it’s in their best interest to deny and delay claims because many people who have been denied will not pursue things.”
http://deutermanlaw.com/insurance_companies_practice_deny_delay_tactics/
From ABC Good Morning America.
“GMA Gets Answers: Insurer Delays Long-Term Benefit Coverage”
“Kristoff was working at Yellow Book selling advertising 1½ years ago. The job entailed lugging the heavy books to meetings with potential clients. It was a job she loved, until one day a visit to the doctor brought terrible news.
She was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer, and it was spreading throughout her body.
“It was awful, and I was extremely tired — limping, sharp pain,” Kristoff said.
Doctors said there was no way she could do her sales job anymore. The cancer had actually eaten holes through her hips. Her company had no other position to offer her, so Kristoff filed a claim for disability insurance.
Like millions of Americans, she paid a small amount each month — $20 in her case — to cover her financially should she be unable to work. One-third of Americans have some form of disability insurance.
For Kristoff, paying Cigna for disability insurance was the easy part. Collecting the insurance was a different story.
“It was a daily, eight-hour job just trying to fulfill the information that Cigna was requesting,” she said. “And it wasn’t once. It would be over and over again.”
But after five months of submitting forms, Cigna denied Kristoff’s claim for short-term disability. Cigna said she had not proven a disability. Sick and with bills piled up, Kristoff says she considered something drastic.
“If I wasn’t going to be getting better, I didn’t want to sink the rest of my family, so I spent two days in bed crying and thinking about suicide,” she said.
Instead Kristoff hired an attorney. In short order, Cigna reversed course and paid her short-term benefits. Then with her lawyer’s help, she applied for the much more important long-term help.
Delay Tactics
Her policy promised to pay her 60 percent of her salary if she was too disabled to work.
This time Cigna raised a different objection, saying because Kristoff had a different form of cancer two years before she was diagnosed with the breast cancer that had metastasized, she did not qualify for disability. Doctors say the two cancers are unrelated, and she had been diagnosed as cancer-free well before she began her new job.
“I’m appalled, I’m disgusted, but I’m not surprised because there are hundreds of Susans, many of which I’m representing currently,” said Kristoff’s attorney, Alicia Paulino Grisham.
Grisham says she’s seen this tactic before and it’s called “slow walking.”
“The insurance companies understand that if they deny and deny claims, then many of the claimants will never pursue their claim,” Grisham said.”
“”Delay tactics are a killer in this situation — it’s, ‘How do I pay for gas? How do I pay for food? Where’s my day-to-day money? I’m caught up for weeks, months, over a year,'” Cuomo said.
Pisano replied, “I think that it’s a balance. The people who framed this law tried to strike a balance, giving every opportunity to make the case, for there to be a fair and thorough review.”
Finally, Some Good News
“GMA” got involved in Kristoff’s case as she was awaiting the results of yet another appeal.
It had been 1½ years since her cancer diagnosis, but shortly after “GMA” called Cigna on her behalf, Kristoff got some good news.
Cigna announced that based on “additional information … her disability benefits would be covered ” after all.”
Read more:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=4724106&page=1
You will be shocked when you find out what happened to me.
I am one of the lucky ones. I had assets and support but it still destroyed my finances and I am still in pain.
More to come.
Wells
More here:
https://citizenwells.com/
http://citizenwells.net/
