Insurance Approval Q

[CTGirl08 10]

Once your doctor submitted you to your insurance company for approval, did anyone contact the insurance company themselves to check on the status? If so, how did you know what department to call?

[Jingle123423 165]

I just did this on Friday. I called the regular customer service line.

[BetterLife2018 7]

Once your doctor submitted you to your insurance company for approval, did anyone contact the insurance company themselves to check on the status? If so, how did you know what department to call?

You call the customer service line and ask for the authorization department

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using BariatricPal mobile app

[KristinOlivia 35]

My insurance card had a specific pre-authorization phone number on it- but in general you can call customer service and ask for the pre-auth department. I worked in Medical Billing for years so I spent many hours on the phone with them.

And yes, for my sleeve surgery I called everyday to check the status :)

[chicagogirl74 20]

On 8/19/2018 at 4:53 PM, KristinOlivia said:

My insurance card had a specific pre-authorization phone number on it- but in general you can call customer service and ask for the pre-auth department. I worked in Medical Billing for years so I spent many hours on the phone with them.

And yes, for my sleeve surgery I called everyday to check the status

Thank you so much for this info about calling in. When I read this my spidy senses kicked in, I decided to call and low and behold, they are waiting for something from the dr. office. I just sent a very matter of fact email to the coordinator asking what is the hold up on their end.

Always be your own advocate!

[NikkiF22 7]

On 8/19/2018 at 9:14 AM, CTGirl08 said:

Once your doctor submitted you to your insurance company for approval, did anyone contact the insurance company themselves to check on the status? If so, how did you know what department to call?

ALWAYSSS contact everyone yourself. I had originally went with one doctor and was scammed, approved in 3 weeks without getting all the proper tests needed for my surgery. Thank god I was smart enough to call my insurance to jussssttt double check and found out he was out of network and I would of been paying a astronomical amount for surgery. Luckily was referred to my new surgeon and he has been amazing!

[Russ D 115]

On 8/19/2018 at 8:14 AM, CTGirl08 said:

Once your doctor submitted you to your insurance company for approval, did anyone contact the insurance company themselves to check on the status? If so, how did you know what department to call?

I called all parties involved constantly. Doctor's office ("Did you sent it yet?") and insurance company ("Did you get it yet?"). The hospital still screwed up and tried to charge me full price, they didn't do THEIR job right and got a false-positive on the insurance..."Well, since you don't have insurance benefits, we'll need $9000 before we can process you any further for your procedure two days from now." THAT set off a mild panic attack, as I ran through all the phone calls once again...doctor, two levels of insurance, and hospital...all within about an hour of the close of business hours.

You can't do too much checking up and making sure your ducks are lined up, human error CAN happen, and when it does they will blithely let you take the damage for it if you don't watch them.