Insurance Tips

Get Your Insurance Company Busy: Money and Insurance Companies

Let's face it: treatment for a brain tumor is expensive. For example, the cost of treating a glioblastoma with surgery, radiation and modern chemotherapy - along with hospitalizations and other costs, can exceed $450,000 in most parts of the country.

Many people diagnosed with a brain tumor are in the prime of their life. This may be the first time they've ever been seriously ill. On top of everything else, they must now deal with the health insurance in all its complicated bureaucracy.  Fraught with red tape intended to discourage the payment of claims, health insurance agencies want to turn patients against doctors and hospitals. The sad reality: the insurance company is the enemy and should be forced to pay out every dime. Why else have you been paying premiums all these years?

The situation is clearly unfair. As the patient, you will be focused on fighting for your life, and your energy may be somewhat diminished after surgery and during radiation and chemotherapy. Few healthy people can decipher the modern claim forms of an insurance company. What can be expected of a distraught person with a brain tumor or their worried family? Neither patient nor grieving relatives will be in any mood to deal with the twisted mechanisms of an insurance company.

Some advice to avoid such unnecessary stress: While you're feeling good, get a lawyer on retainer and find out the telephone number of the state insurance board. You may need both. Don't wait to see what the insurance company will do. That may take months. It is tempting to assume that since they always paid the bill for your primary care physician, they'll do the same now. Think again! The primary care physician's bill was pocket change to them. You've hit medical insurance equivalent of "the big time". By the time  you find out you've been given a shoddy deal, you may be in the middle of radiation and/or chemotherapy and not up to doing battle with the health insurance administrators.

Assume from the start that they are out to cheat you. Most often, you'll find this to be correct. If it turns out to be wrong, you can be pleasantly surprised while having lost nothing by preparing for the worst - and most likely - scenario.