Kevin Knauss: Health, History, Travel, Insurance
Posts related to Anthem Blue Cross individual, family, small group, and Medicare health insurance.
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 calendar of events on the Keep Dignity Health website states that by October 17, 2021, all Dignity providers and hospitals will be out-of-network with Anthem Blue Cross. The contract termination would include Medicare Advantage plans and other HMO groups. The complete termination with Blue Cross assumes that there will be no resolution to the contract dispute. Dignity Hospitals will still be in-network for life-threatening emergency care.
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.
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.
Short term medical plans are a less than perfect bridge for individuals and families in between credible minimal essential health insurance coverage. Even though short term medical plans can deny applicants for pre-existing conditions, charge more for being a female, and have caps on how much the plan will pay, they can be a solid backstop to ridiculous emergency room bills. The rates for short term medical plans will usually be in the neighborhood of a California Bronze individual and family PPO health plan.
American Indians and Native Alaskans have access to special $0 cost share health plans that are available through Covered California. A recent enrollment by a member of a federally recognized Indian tribe was offered four different Anthem Blue Cross PPO $0 cost share plan where each one had a different premium rate. This is odd since regardless of the metal tier level of the $0 cost share American Indian-Native Alaskan (AI-NA) health plan, they all have the same exact benefits: zero dollar cost share for all services.
Anthem Blue Cross, following internal policies to protect agents, prevents their members from selecting their preferred health insurance agent through Covered California. The Blue Cross policy of not recognizing an agent delegation made by a household in their Covered California account prevents the selected agent from properly representing the family members and being compensated for his or her time. The Blue Cross agent of record policy occurs when the Covered California member originally enrolled with another agent or without an agent and the member is considered a house account.
Anthem Blue Cross of California announced that they are shipping new and improved membership cards for individuals and families in the Exclusive Provider Organization (EPO) health plans in California. The new cards will have the very important three little letters of EPO actually imprinted on the card.
At a hastily arranged conference call for insurance agents to address a variety of issues involving new individual and family health plans for California, the Anthem Blue Cross Regional Sales Manager for Northern California announced they were extending the payment deadline until January 31st for policies sold through Covered California with effective dates of January 1st, 2014. This is the third time Anthem has extended the deadline for new enrollments.
