Blue Cross Blue Shield is going to ruin our lives

Insurance companies ruin lives, and with the way things are going Blue Cross Blue Shield is going to ruin ours. 

I couldn’t have planned for having twins four months prematurely, but I did plan enough to have health insurance to pay the bills in case of a medical emergency. Yet, here we are with thousands of declined claims on the basis that we had another primary insurer during the twins’ stay in the NICU—which, if you’re wondering, is false.

It’s just you Blue Cross Blue Shield. You’re on the hook for the twins’ NICU stay, and we’ve provided proof of that to you three times. You confirmed you received it. Yet here we are with our medical providers threatening to send us to collections for bills that have gone unpaid for nearly a year. 

Bills for intubations, extubations, blood draws, antibiotics, surgeries, viral panels, surgeries, infectious disease consults, and more surgeries were denied payment under a false premise.  

You, Blue Cross Blue Shield, expect me to believe there’s nothing you can do. You expect me to believe that a computer runs the show and only the computer can determine if or when my children’s medical bills get paid. Only your computer can determine whether our credit is destroyed because we chose to fight for our daughter’s lives. And every time another 200 page packet of denied claims arrives, you remind me that profit trumps people in your line of work. Ironic, do you think?

If I were more important—if my voice were louder— maybe you could get your computer to pay our claims. After all, you wouldn’t want to sully your good name if it meant big companies stopped contracting you as their insurance provider. If only they knew that you only pay the bills that keep things profitable for you. When the bills are too big, you fight back. Since 1929 you’ve led the healthcare industry by rising to the challenges that change brings—unless, of course, that change is saving the lives of 22 weeker babies. That’s too expensive, am I right? 

My husband has spent dozens upon dozens of hours of following up with an account manager who has never called him back. Instead of working to provide for our family, he’s spending his time fighting to be absolved of a responsibility that was never ours. We’ve written letters requesting that our outstanding bills be paid. We have provided proof time and time again that, you, Blue Cross Blue Shield were, in fact, our insurer when the healthcare services in question were rendered. Yet here we are, powerless.

My options are limited: I can keep calling, wasting my time, and pray that someone finally presses the right button, or I can hire an attorney and pray they can get someone to push the right button. The latter comes out of our budget for the twins’ alternative therapies—you know, the therapies you don’t cover. 

Both options suck and are not likely to yield the desired result.

There’s no humanity in any of this. I spent seven months sitting in a hospital praying my kids would live, and I still managed to check all of the boxes. I made sure my insurance didn’t have a cap. I applied for Medicaid as a backup insurance just in case my primary insurance wouldn’t cover certain treatments. I talked to the social worker at the hospital to make sure my ass was covered, all while I waited to see if my kids would live or die.

My situation is not your concern, Blue Cross Blue Shield. Your concern is who pays for the multi-million dollar mess my kids and I made, and you will be damned if it’s you.

It’s been nearly a year that I’ve been trying to find someone who can fix this, yet here I am, using the only platform I have to say this:

I didn’t sign up for the micro preemie babies with lung disease, retinopathy of prematurity, and digestive issues. I didn’t sign up to watch my babies fight for their lives, their little bodies scarred from battle. I didn’t sign up to watch my kid be brought back from the dead.

But you, Blue Cross Blue Shield, you did sign up to pay the bill. When you took my employer’s money, you agreed to insure me. So do your damn job.