Posts Tagged ‘blue cross’

Website – https://www.bcbs.com
Located – Chicago, IL
Phone – 1-800-771-7758
Employees – 880
Revenue (mil.) – $182.7
Description – The rise of managed health care has had some of its members singing the blues, but the Blues — with more than 100 million members nationwide — aren’t complaining. The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association is a federation of independent health insurance companies who license the Blue Cross and Blue Shield brand names. Member companies — of which there are about 40 — own the rights to sell Blue-branded health plans within defined regions. The Association coordinates some national programs such as BlueCard, which allows members of one franchisee to have coverage in other service areas, and the Federal Employee Program, which covers more than half of federal government employees, retirees, and their families.

Source: http://www.hoovers.com

Reviews & Ratings

SpeedyG’s Full Review of Blue Cross and Blue Shield Health Insurance Association

I pay about $350 per month… but the coverage has been superb. I’m an athlete and BCBS covered a foot surgery that I could’ve lived without, but having the surgery was imperative for me to get back to my level of activity after my injury. From the other reviews I see here it’s clear that that’s not always the case. Other than that, BCBS is accepted just about everywhere. They also have a good health hotline you can call when you’re not sure what the hell is going on with your body. Having a nurse on standby 24/7 is pretty cool. Anyway, I’ve been happy with them, if you can afford it, definitely get BCBS.

Kira’s Full Review of Blue Cross and Blue Shield Health Insurance Association

While I have good coverage for the most part, this company simply cannot process claims correctly. They will lose batches of claims we submit, such that we have had to send them registered mail. They will then “find” the original claim forms 6 months later. They will pay for a service one time, then deny it the next – the exact same service with the exact same provider. They will send us a check for a service, then send us a denial for the same service that they paid! The customer service people on the phone know next to nothing. If you ask them something they are reading an answer from a screen, if you ask them to further clarify, they just re-read what they just said. Also, my insurance has Magellan as a carve out to monitor hospital care and I was denied access to a hospital because they refuse to deal with Magellan – it is so draconian. In general the insurance employees who determine what is “medically necessary” have only a minimum of knowledge to make this judgement. These are nurses that are second guessing what doctors are prescribing, just from looking at some paper claims. I would seriously question the judgement of any doctor who would go to work for an insurance company anyway.

sonieb33′s Full Review of Blue Cross and Blue Shield Health Insurance Association

In January 08 my daughter turned 20. In June 08 she finally had waited out the 6 month pre-existing condition waiting period where you pay for absolutely nothing for 6 months. She then finally went to the doctor for a checkup (in June). Apparently at age 20 a dependent gets thrown off your coverage (who knew?), no questions asked and no warning. I called to ask a question in July 08 and at that time the bulldog customer service rep. must have realized my daughter was over the age limit. The next thing I knew my daughter was cancelled retroactively back to May 08. They never sent me a letter, email, smoke signal – nothing! Nothing to alert me to this fact. I didn’t find out until I suddenly got a bill for the whole amount of her doctor visit in June. I called, furious, and they actually agreed to pay for the doctor visit but did not offer me a chance at that time to continue her coverage via rider. She has gone for another few months without insurance as I explored different avenues and then found out that I could have continued coverage for her via a rider all along. Finally, I signed her up again with a rider two months ago – she had to go to the emergency room for an allergic reaction last night 11/25 and assumed she was covered…no such luck…she won’t be covered until Jan. 1, 09. I would like to know why it takes them one second to cancel someone but four months to add them…and why do they keep playing with my daughter’s insurance coverage?? Do they consider my daughter expendable or something? And how can we continue to pay for coverage for the rest of the family after we’re in hock up to our eyeballs with doctor bills which they have strategically avoided by playing around with coverage, dates, pre-existing conditions clauses and age limits?

Source: http://www.healthinsurancereviewer.com