Kevin Knauss: Health, History, Travel, Insurance
Posts related to health insurance plans offered by Anthem Blue Cross in California for individuals, families, small groups, Medicare, Medi-Cal.
The plan was in violation of the law when it failed to properly exclude certain office visits from enrollee deductibles. These office visits included primary care, and behavioral health office visits. The plan agreed to corrective actions including identifying and reimbursing impacted enrollees, which includes reimbursing nearly $9.2 million to 6,561 enrollees.
Neither Covered California nor the sample Blue Cross letter being sent to members explains why the UC hospitals are no longer in-network. Someone, Blue Cross or UC, pulled the plug retroactively to January 1. Fortunately, Blue Cross expanded their EPO network to include Sutter doctors and hospitals for 2022.
The BlueCard program allows members to receive some health care services outside of California. This is an important feature for individuals who routinely spend weeks or months outside of California on business. With the exception of emergency services, if an individual needed small health care service in another state, they were almost forced to buy two health plans; one for California and one for the other state.
The Sutter providers will mostly benefit counties where Blue Cross is expanding their coverage in the North Bay, East Bay, and Central Valley. A few counties in the Central Valley and most of Southern California will only be offered the Blue Cross HMO plans that do not include the Blue Card Program. Of course, Blue Cross offers additional EPO plans off-exchange, direct from Anthem, with a few extra plan designs that are not offered through Covered California.
Blue Cross will offer the standard benefit design metal tier plans through Covered California and off-exchange, direct from the carrier. They will also offer a few non-standard benefit design plans available off-exchange. Blue Cross will offer a Silver HMO plan off-exchange with no medical deductible and 0 percent coinsurance for medical services. The copayments are a little higher than the standard Silver 70 ($50 office visit, $85 specialist visit, emergency room visit $750) and the maximum out-of-pocket is $8,550 versus the $8,200 for a standard Silver 70.
This is a review of the responses to the Coronavirus Covid-19 health care issues from the websites of most of the individual and family plan carriers in California. Some websites detail the response and cost of Covid-19 health care issues better than other. They all seem to be covering Covid-19 testing at no cost. The cost of other health care services are subject to the plan benefits.
In addition to paying a $2.8 million fine, Anthem Blue Cross has agreed to a Corrective Action Plan (CAP) that represents a fundamental shift in how the plan handles enrollee grievances.
If you have to move out of your county because of the wildfires you may be entitled to a Special Enrollment Period. California is broken into 19 different rating regions. Los Angeles County is actually two regions, 15 and 16. If you move to a different region, you have a qualifying event for a Special Enrollment Period IF you already have health insurance.
Anthem Blue Cross of California has introduced a Medicare Supplement plan that offers vision and hearing benefits. Medicare Part B does not cover eye glasses or hearing aids. The vision and hearing benefits are included in the California Blue Cross Innovative Plan F Medicare Supplement. Glasses And Hearing Aids One of the great frustrations for […]
Inovalon is an independent company that provides secure, clinical documentation services to help make sure members get their diagnoses confirmed, corrected and updated each year. This review helps address potential preventive care gaps, like missed or overdue health screenings.
