About
Why the heck would anyone want to maintain a blog entitled "Aetna Sucks", you might ask.
Well, you see, I’m a disgruntled consumer. My wife and I have health insurance coverage through my employer, serviced by Aetna.
Unfortunately, a few years ago, my wife became disabled, and we were introduced to the bureaucracy of the healthcare industry in America. We may have the best care available, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t hidden behind a mountain of red tape.
My aggravation with this peaked late in 2007 and early in 2008. My wife had a couple of surgeries in the spring of ‘07. We received the necessary blessings from Aetna before each one, and Aetna did end up paying for most of the bills.
However, there was one $5,000 bill that they erroneously declined as "out of network", and naturally I appealed. Aetna’s response to my appeal was to not only deny my appeal, but also to take back what it had previously paid for the other parts of the surgeries.
So, we were left with medical bill collectors suddenly extremely interested in the $100,000 we appear to owe the medical professionals. And, I couldn’t get a straight answer out of Aetna as to what was happening. Telephone customer service reps, while polite, were unable to explain what happened…and a second appeal went unanswered until an attorney general stepped in to ask a few questions.
Unfortunately, because our health insurance is employer-provided, a federal law called ERISA governs dispute resolution…and basically makes it all but impossible to have a meaningful lawsuit stick against a health insurer, or even be effective as a tool to get the insurer to bargain in good faith. (There’s no damages for bad faith, no jury, and only rarely are attorneys fees awarded…)
So, rather than simply sitting around being pissed, I’ve launched this site. Part of this is my own personal war against Aetna. And part of this is to hopefully share information so that others who are going through similar hells might find some useful information…or at least take some solace in knowing that they aren’t alone.
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I’m dealing with Aetna’s Cobra dept. I lost my job and am paying the premiums on my own. I pay over the phone to avoid any chance of them saying they never rec’d payment and cancelling me. Well they took 2 payments instead of one and now I’m being lied to and getting no customer service in handling this. They say a refund will be mailed but won’t tell me when. If I press for when they give me a date that does not happen. I hate them. I’m on unemployment. That means I am in survival mode and no Health Insurance should be allowed to create further distress on someone who is already under stress. Unreasonable and inexcusably poor customer care.