Blue Cross Blue Shield is in fact a lousy insurance company in my opinion. When I became pregnant with my son, I was considered a high-risk pregnancy because I had developed life threatening complications four years earlier while pregnant with my daughter. As a high risk I should have had ultrasounds done on a monthly basis instead I had one done at 12 weeks. BCBS refused to pay for more than two ultrasounds one at the beginning of the pregnancy and one at the end. The end of the pregnancy came six weeks early so the second ultrasound was never done.
As a result of the lack of highly recommended ultrasounds we were very surprised to say the least when my son was born with a congenital heart defect that claimed his life at three months of age. This could have been prevent (by inutero surgery) or at very least given him a fighting chance to survive long enough to have the heart surgery he needed.
As if that was not bad enough BCBS refused to pay for any of his medical bills after the delivery stating that he had a pre-existing condition and was not eligible for insurance benefits.
After three months of weekly doctors visits, emergency room visits, Neo-natal intensive care and Pediatric intensive care hospital stays, cardiac cauterization procedures, echocardiograms, electrocardiograms, chest x-rays and a three hour ambulance ride to a hospital with a pediatric thoracic surgeon and an attempt at open heart surgery (which he died on the operating table after the anesthesia was administered) we had acquired bills that could never be paid in this lifetime.
The doctors and hospitals continued to bill BCBS naively believing they may have even a little bit of heart and pay some of the bills. Of course they did not and at that point they began sending me all the bills and I did receive a few not so nice phone calls from them as well. At this point the bills had amounted to $458,000!
To top it all off on the day of my son’s funeral I received the last phone call from a BCBS reprehensive that informed me if I did not contact the doctors and hospitals that provided my son’s care and inform them that he had no insurance and to stop sending the claim forms to them they would sue me!
I not so politely informed them that they no longer had to worry about my baby’s bills because he was dead and I just buried him! Along with a few other where you can go and a few suggestions of what they could do when they got there. She of course apologized and tried to be nice but it was too late.
Their last attempt at making amends was a sympathy card and a packet of information on local and state charities that help pay medical bills during circumstances such as that.
Which was nice of them however it would have been a lot nicer if they had provided me with that information from the start and not harassed me while I was going through the death of a child?
Summing it up I think anyone can see why I personally believe BCBS is a lousy insurance company!