Something I HATE, HATE, HATE about having to deal with insurance companies is that you can never get a straight answer out of them and they never give the same answer twice.

Take Moonshine. Moonshine is the CS rep who answered UHC's hotline the day I called to find out if WLS was excluded on my company's policy. Moonshine looked it up on her little computer ... or maybe she just pulled her answer out her ass ... and told me that it was.

But Moonshine was wrong.

So for the past three months that I've been thinking all I had to do was switch to UHC when Open Enrollment came along and I'd be fine for my surgery in the fall.

That's three months wasted. Three months I could have spent working with a surgeon to get my pre-op requirements out of the way as as self-pay patient. That's also three months that I spent making lifestyle changes in preparation for having a band that lead to me dropping below 40 BMI. If I'd been under a surgeon's care with my weight recorded at its highest, it wouldn't matter and all this weight would count towards the 10% that the surgeons in my area want you to lose before they operate.

I am not feeling very charitable towards Moonshine right now.

I have them send out written confirmation of everything they say. UHC did that for me when they said it was covered. Any company that will not give you written confirmation, is not a good company.

Oh no I am very sorry to hear that :smile2:

I try to make it a habit to make the call 2x to confirm that I get the same answers.. Even then sometimes it doesn't work.

I tried calling 2x but the second time I didn't get an answer at all. (They were supposed to call me back. Ha!) So I asked the HR department, particularly the one who negotiates the contracts with the insurance companies.

I am very sorry that they did this to you....insurance compnies suck and are generally the spawn of satan. However, don't hold it against Moonshine. She's probably just bitter because her parents named her Moonshine....wouldn't you be??

I really had a hard time not laughing when she told me her name, to be honest. Maybe she sensed that.

Well, the good news is: I don't have to change my insurance. I really didn't want to as I really like the policy I have now.

yay :cursing: that's good!