As it turns out, due to the newborn extension of benefits clause in our United Healthcare policy from 2019, the twins’ NICU bills are to be paid by United.
I don’t feel bad for what I said about Blue Cross Blue Shield, though. It is unacceptable that it took over a year for them to inform us of this caveat. We’ve talked to over 25 people, none of whom knew anything about this clause.
While we are closer to getting our NICU bills paid, this is hardly the end.
Despite proof that we gave United Healthcare the correct dates of birth for the twins, someone took the liberty of “correcting” Margot’s birthday to match Vivienne’s. (Apparently, twins born two days apart is very unbelievable.)
It doesn’t come as a surprise that a wrong date of birth is grounds for denying claims. So we’re in the process of getting United to fix Margot’s date of birth.
We anticipate that after the date of birth comes the issue with the claims being filed more than a year after the twins’ births. I suppose we will cross that bridge when we get there.
The most tragic part of all of this is that we tried to resolve this in a civilized manner. We were patient. We followed up. But it was only once I had a nervous breakdown and publicized the story on social media and here on my blog that we made any progress. Their desire to shut me up was what moved this problem toward resolution.
When we finally do resolve this, I’ll be writing a guide on what to do when insurance denies your NICU bills.