SiCKO - The Official Site - In Theaters June 29th

Humana Inc ( )

15 Comments

Liz Says:
June 2nd, 2007 at 2:49 am
Annual pap smear and breast exam, supposed to be covered, was not paid by Humana until just over 11 months. During my next year’s employee health insurance enrollment period, I switched to another company. Humana’s customer service is awful. You are on hold for long periods and the staff are rude. I did not get my insurance card from them until AFTER the second month of my coverage. Certain types of doctor visits require pre-authorization before each visit… including date/time/reason. You are not always told immediately if the visit will be covered. Humana calls you back and lets you know. If it is unsuccessful, you call the doctor’s office back and have to cancel the appt. The customer service Voice Response Unit is a quagmire of options. If you by chance pick the incorrect option, some of them hang up on you after a few seconds. Worst company I have ever dealt with. Once, desperate for a job, I interviewed with Humana, and the interviewer showed up 35 minutes late to my interview. Once my bf had to pay for the syringe MRI dye was injected into him with, because Humana deemed it “optional”. Intravenous dye can only be put in a vein by a syringe. There is no OPTION involved in it.
Judy Says:
June 5th, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Well, I’ve had Military Humana (Tricare) for 3 years. My husband is an active duty Marine. Last year, while he was in Iraq, I was pregnant with our 2nd. They require you change regions when you’ll be somewhere over 30 days. I not only have to re-apply & fax the same paper, but I have to wait for approval as well. EVERY TIME. Then we get a new card & guess what? There’s no one to show you “the ropes” so there I go, calling a dozen times to ask how referals go & then I find out that the whole time i’ve been prgnant & seeing a doctor, i’ve been going to someone who they won’t pay for. They tell me this afterwards. Not only that, turns out they tell my baby is not growing properly & I have to go to the hospital & weekly appointments to check the fluid amount & growth & they have to approve them all. So I can’t make appointments because I don’t know how long they’ll take to get approved & I can’t get approved because I can’t find a “qualified” doctor in my small town besides the ones who they won’t cover. So at this point, i’m making calls every day trying to see if i’m get approved for my appointments & having to cancel the ones that didn’t. & honestly, at some point, it didn’t matter. My baby comes first, so if we get in debt, so be it. So now i’m sure i’m in collections even though I HAVE health insurance & have had one for 3 years. EVERY year that our military gets a small pay raise, our health insurance coverage goes down. So it doesn’t matter. What we’re getting in our checks, we’re dishing out for health care. It’s a fake pat in the back & I went through HELL being pregnant with one 2 year old & my 24 year old husband in Iraq. I cried tears over this & we owe money we don’t have because they don’t WANT to train us how to use these things properly. They offer classes on using our healthcare but not in this small town & not for free. I love my country. My husband is a patriotic American. But our healthcare system is so severly broken. It’s shameful.
kim Says:
June 11th, 2007 at 8:29 pm
due to significant breast cancer in my family …as a female my doctor recommended that i get a mammogram every year… so before i got the mammogram done i called humana to verify coverage …this was there reply… “yes, we will cover a mammogram screening, however if they see something a request a second diagnostic screen, we wont pay for that”…i sincerely wonder what the point of having health insurance is.. you know what the saddest part of all of this is… I am a registered nurse working for one of the largest catholic health systems. i take care of folks in this situation every day… and all i can do is pray… I DONT GET SICK !
tlp Says:
June 13th, 2007 at 8:01 am
Idontknow why the 2 previous people have had so many problems. Humana has been wonderful. I have never held more than a minute or two. Everyone I spoke with was more than helpful. I am considering a second pregnancy and I have spoken with them,had info mailed to me and printed info from online. Do your research. Write down who you spoke with, the date and the time. I know healthcare is number 1 but try to keep emotions in check. Don’t let them know they’ve gotten to you.
Harriette Seiler Says:
June 16th, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Re: Postings by Liz and Judy (the military wife who needs immediate access to prenatal care).

How much longer are “we the people” going to put up with such inhumane treatment by for-profit insurance companies such as Humana? They make their profits by denying care.

Call your Congressperson today! Urge him/her to co-sponsor HR 676, the single-payer bill now before Congress.
Catherine Says:
June 17th, 2007 at 12:06 pm
My son hs DMD, a progressive degenerative disease that weakens and destroys all muscules and leaves the person unable to walk, breath or etc without assistance. My husband is an active duty soldier who has served his country honorably for over 10 years-including serving in Iraq. He obtained a horrible back injury while lifting our 150 pound son from his wheelchair, into bed. His doctor and our sons doctor got together and decided we needed a special lift to use-and put in a referral for the lift in Septemeber. It is now June, and insurance company has still not apporoved the lift for various reasons. My husbands back remains injured requiring him to see a chiroprator weekly. He has been threatened by his unit to be kicked out of the army if the back “doesnt get fixed” soon. How can his back “get fixed” if we are not recieving the equipment we need to keep both of us from having to lift and repeatedly hurt our backs?
Karena Says:
June 19th, 2007 at 2:12 am
In February of 2002 my diabetic father suffered a drop in his blood sugar and caused him to pass out. He woke up and within five minutes passed out again, this time breaking his leg. He was treated and then sent home. Trying to get his orthopedic, physical therapy, and nurse visits covered was nearly impossible. To make matters worse, as his leg healed, his diabetes started getting worse and worse. Eventually, he was suffering from seizures and hitting himself. He was on medication, but that did not work and Humana would not approve for him to see a different neurologist. Our family practitioner wanted to take over his care, but by that time it was too late. It had gotten to the point that my father was landing in the emergency room at least three times a week for the 4 weeks leading up to his death. Humana and the hospital would not approve for him to stay at the hospital, even though they had room in their long term care wing. To get him into a nursing facility, we had to fill mountains of paperwork and wait to see if it would be approved. Our only other option was to put him in the VA hospital over 4 hours away, and even that had to be pre-approved. We took my dad home and hoped to hear from the insurance company soon. But, alas, we did not and 4 days after Christmas in 2002 my father died, and it all could have been avoided if the bureaucracy of the insurance companies was eliminated altogether. It is sad, that in the richest country in the world, hard working people can’t even obtain adequate coverage. Oh, and as the final kicker, my mother is still fighting some of the $100,000 in medical bills that were incurred by my dad, even though she was forced to file bankruptcy. A sad state of affairs indeed.
JRW Says:
June 19th, 2007 at 12:42 pm
Always have to fight with Humana to cover dental work. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t cover need care. For health insurance, i had to fork over hundreds of dollars in fees and to cover needed exams and treatments, while paying a $200 a month premium for myself alone.

And the saying that if you want affordable insurance don’t get sick is true about Humana. After one year, I had a choice between a 50% rise in my deductible or $30 rise in my monthly premium.

The “free market” costs and arm and a leg.
Kari Rogozinski Says:
June 20th, 2007 at 12:29 am
My uncle was brought into the emergency room one evening delusional and delirious. He is a severe diabetic with insulin dependency who had a sugar count of 23 when taken by the ER doctor (which is very low and dangerous)after being in the ER for more than 5 hours and my aunt inquiring about admission, she was told that the called his primary care physician (PCP) who said it was no serious enough for him to ok an admission. The ER doctor hit the roof and was arguing with the PCP and said he was going to take it upon himself to approve the admission and deal with the insurance company later only to be told that Humana would not pay for this visit. G-d bless the ER doctor, my uncle wound up staying in the hospital for 2 weeks and later passed away from diabetic complications. My aunt continues to recieve bills because humana said they would not pay because the pcp did not approve the admission. I guess you have to stop breathing or your heart has to stop for them to “consider” admission I still cant believe his happened and if i wasnt there, i dont know if i would have believed it.

This is an outrage and changes need to be made. Thank you Michael Moore for bringing this issue to light I think its crazy that the good old buck is more important than human life.
ElevTenSix Says:
June 25th, 2007 at 11:28 am
My experience w/ Humana has been positive and rates have remained relatively stable.

Thanks !
LMH Says:
June 26th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
I also have a Humana horror story. My ex-husband at the time we were married had Humana through the KY State Hwy Dept. On every claim that came in on me or our 2 children the claims were denied even on procedure’s that we had pre-certified this has gone on for a year.My ex-husband had a heartattack and they covered everything no questions asked.They always say they need more documentation.Then when you call, they don’t know who you are, Why the claim has been denied or what the problem was. But the next time it’s submitted they deny it again.Kinda like the Bush administration.They’re always innocent and it’s always somebody else’s fault. I am sick of dealing with this damn company I am a single white working american woman.Who has had her bills sent to collections and am presently facing garnishment because the insurance that was supposed to cover doesn’t.Do we need healthcare reform in America Hell yes!! Michael Moore is dead on!!
Janet Sweet Says:
June 26th, 2007 at 10:33 pm
Annual Mammogram which is covered under my HMO policy charged me a $500.00 deductible because it was performed in a womens clinic that is located in Holy Cross Hospital, and Humana deemed it a Hospital visit. This after Humana advised the Hospital that I had no coverage, becuase they looked at an old policy from a different employer. I am still fighting to get the $500.00 back from Holy Cross, even though I went through the Office of inusrance regulation and got an order from Commissioner Kevin M. McCarty ordering Humana to pay me the $500.00 back. I recently changed employers again, and because my last employer did not cancel my coverage until two months after I started coverage with the new company, I received a letter from Humana advising me that I had no coverage. Once again because they do not differentiate betweeen employers. Everything takes 30 days each time you talk to Humana. Now Humana has paid Holy Cross another $215.95 towards the deductible and told me I have to get the money back from Holy Cross, and Holy Cross tells me that they will not give me the money back, because I have a deductible according to Humana, and they do not know why Humana paid the extra money, but they will not give it to me. Both Humana and Holy Cross are nightmares. You never can talk to the same person twice, they have notes they have to read each time, and the notes must be written on 2 by 3 stickies because they are missing half of the information. The insurance companies and the doctors office’s are all in it together. The doctors offices and hospitals know how to work the system to get money they are not entitled to and the general public is paying for it with increased inusrance rates. Why does a mammogram cost $800.00 if you have a $500.00 deductible, but only $215.95 if the HMO is paying for it? I just paid for a mammogram two years ago out of my own pocket and it only cost $182.00 for the mammogram and $50.00 for the office visit, with no insurance coverage! What do I need inusrance for?
Oren Says:
June 27th, 2007 at 12:55 am
Round 1: Under My Skin

While covered by a Humana PPO group plan, I saw a dermatologist about some cherry angiomas I had found on my skin. These are tiny red bumps caused when blood vessels dilate at or near the epidermis. They are tiny and quite common as people age. They pose no danger to me whatsoever according to the dermatologist who examined them…but I thought I would check. I even checked the medical journals at medlineplus.gov which said the same thing…nothing to worry about which means removing them is not neccessary for maintaining my health. I save a few bucks for a local company, and keep healthcare costs down voluntarily. No problem, right?

Round 2 - Humana Won

I lost my job and my benefits last month, just days before my birthday. I am thinking that I would apply for insurance for my wife and I to replace the coverage we had lost. The HumanaOne plan offered three choices and a (weak) online form to calculate your cost per month pending an underwriter’s approval. That was the kicker…what followed was all of this “due dilligence” hours on the phone with Dr. Mengele’s receptionist. This eugenophilic algorithm that calculates risk clicked all of its assumptions together and the computer said no. The agent told me I would not qualify for insurance because I had not had these benign little marks removed. Oy $h!t, do I have to burn them off myself now?

This makes me sad, because I was ready to save them a few bucks. The two ancient marble statues in their lobby gave up arm and leg, totally lost their heads, and represent perfectly what insurance has done to us. It could be fixed from within, but it would take a different approach and I won’t hold my breath waiting.
Rosh Says:
June 30th, 2007 at 3:38 am
Humana keeps increasing their rates every year. It seems that everytime I get a raise in the non-profit company I work for, all goes to the increase in health insurance. America needs healthcare reform to reflect free government healthcare…government healthcare does not equal socialism like some say…it equals well deserved care for Americans.
betty Says:
July 2nd, 2007 at 7:31 pm
my experience with humana has been 100% wonderful. they offer wonderful wellness benefits like a free gym membership. i would recommend them to all.

SiCKO - The Official Site - In Theaters June 29th

Humana Inc ( )

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