The dysfunctional nature of insurance companies never ceases to amaze. This month, tens (hundreds?) of thousands of 18 year olds are heading off to colleges away from home, and their parents are thinking about health insurance in some new location. I’m one of those parents as my eldest daughter heads off to Boulder to study biology.
Knowing that "college kid" questions must be common at this time of year, I (foolishly) hoped/expected to find that that the "customer advocates" at Blue Cross Blue Shield "member services" (at 1-800-528-8833) would have information more or less at their fingertips to answer questions about preferred providers or others in new locations, such as Boulder. I also hoped for answers to simple questions, such as: If I give BCBS her new address, will BCBS still send to me its (unintelligible) statements and bills when services are provided?
So, I called. What answers did I get from BCBS? So far, none. Not even close. To the contrary, the "customer advocate" I spoke with at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois was absolutely clueless about the ramifications of children becoming a college student at a new location. All she could suggest was that I go to the Anthem web site (that’s BCBS in Colorado) and see what I could find on my own. Worse yet, the (very nice) advocate I dealt with had to ask a peer to run a computer search because her own computer fails frequently. And, of course, I reached a human only after of 5 minutes of inane voice prompts, and several more minutes of plain old waiting. Our call ended with her saying she would try to get some answers and call me in a day or two.
There are reasons why insurance companies are hated by so many.