You know how your insurance company is supposed to pay your doctor in a timely way? Well, when they don’t, the doctors complain. If an insurance company is slow and irritating enough, they get complained about by the doctors. If it gets bad enough, they file with the California Department of Managed Health Care.
So, from the CA Department of Managed Health Care, I bring you the statistics on California health plans and the numbers of complaints they got from health care providers in 2007 (doctors, paramedics, physical therapists, OB/GYNs, etc.).
In first place for worst relationship with providers is Blue Cross with 603 complaints — a whopping 19.7% of the total complaints for the year!
In second place, Blue shield with 305 complaints!
And in third place, Kaiser Permanente with 288 complaints!
Numbers to keep in mind when shopping for health insurance. If the plan doesn’t keep your doctor happy, how happy do you think your doctor is going to make you? Also, for those interested, Kaiser had a total of 6,793,480 enrollees in 2007. Blue Cross had 4,162,214 enrollees — fewer members, more doctor complaints.
Want to see the complete rankings? Check out the PDF from the DMHC
October 8, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Anthem Blue Cross has just sent us a 3 page letter explaining how they are denying my wife’s dental claim. Excuse after excuse and asking more information from my dentist who has been forthright in sending every one so far that they have asked for, X-rays, narratives, phone calls, etc. Finally we said no more. We paid the dentist for our services before our credit was ruined for non payment. We are leaving Anthem as soon as possible and I encourage members to so before your claim is delayed or denied for a series of excuses.
October 24, 2008 at 11:12 pm
I think Anthem Blue Cross is the worst. When you call for questions make sure you have hours to wait and then not get any answers.I recommend stay as far away as you can get from Anthem Blue Cross
December 12, 2008 at 8:27 pm
In support of your poor opinion of Anthem, let me add my recent experience.
When Blue Cross of Cal. (now Anthem) transitions a client to Anthem’s Senior Plan (seniors get no choice in the matter) Anthem makes it clear that their opinion of seniors is that seniors’ IQs change in an inverse relationship to their age. Anthem changes the wording of some previously covered procedures to obscure verbiage that they subsequently hide behind to deny payment for claims. Even submitting your arguement to the California Insurance Bureau results in the Bureau throwing up their hands and cliaming that arbitration of arcane contract language is beyond their purview. My dentist is out of patience with Anthem and disclosed for me the economic benefits of dumping Anthem and going with Careington. I did this and am now am a happy Careington client.
April 30, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Anthem Blue Cross of New Jersey (yes, they are just as bad at this end of the country as well). How about five months waiting for a claim to be processed? I’m not even looking for payment, just an eob bouncing responsibility back to me as part of my annual deductible. Can’t even get a rejection from them. Anthem customer service has put a super-top-priority rush on my claim three times.
Nothing yet.