They probably send you a happy birthday every year and they probably kill half of a Forrest sending you information about how they are for you but let me tell you an honest truth:
Your insurance company is working against you. Especially, when it comes to your mental health.
Let me give you an example.
Recently, I was informed by my personnel director that a local health insurance company had “closed” their application process. They simply are not taking new providers until they catch up with the process. Incidentally, this insurance company is owned by a hospital conglomerate that also shares a name with cable company. If you work in the mental health agencies in that are a part of that Spectrum, this insurance which would like you to think that your health is their priority will panel those providers.
I said to her, “I’m going to blog about that.”
She replied, “Insurance companies do it all the time.”
But should they?
That is my response and my question.
Think about this. If you know a licensed counselor in the great state of Michigan who for whatever reason hasn’t been able to go through the ridiculous and long credentialing process, you can’t see them for therapy because your insurance company is currently closed. Of course, you could see her and just pay cash but you’re probably already dropping hundreds, if not thousands of dollars a month to your insurance company so why go that route?
Why should insurance companies be able to go beyond the state requirements and say, “These are the people, we will pay for and these people we will not pay for services when both are licensed through the same state?”
Why not just have a process that says, if the person you want to see has a legal license in the state, you can see her?
Because your insurance company is about making money, not about helping you.
Our whole medical insuring process is not reasonable.
The ACA in its current form isn’t helping the process. It’s giving more power to the insurance companies by guaranteeing them customers.
If we are really going to help people, we need a simplified insurance system on the provider side. If a person has a license, you should be able to see them.
As a provider, insurance companies are one of my biggest headaches.
Claims get paid, then they don’t and the reason isn’t clear.
Clients call and ask about coverage, what they’re told is often light years way from what happens.
We need real, honest reform to the policies.
Right now, we are turning away clients that have a certain insurance company because we simply cannot take them. It’s not that we don’t want to take them, it’s that we can’t because some insurance company decided that they are closing the people they reimburse for services.
Because at the end of the day, it’s about them, and not you.
This needs to change.
Only you, as a consumer can make that change happen.
