Mike Levesque
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- Joined
- May 2, 2002
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Wow, the strangest thing happened on Friday.
In case any of you don't know, I live in Illinois, Northwest suburbs of Chicago.
Came home from work, and found an envelope in the mail from the health insurance provider I had about 3 years ago. (we've since switched our provider at work)
It had ALL my personal info, name, address, ss#, employer, etc.
And it informed me it was denying my claim for an office visit, and 2 surgeries, at a medical office in Arizona, because I'm no longer covered by them, duh!
Funny, I've never set foot in Arizona. What a way to start the weekend! So, first things first, I call the insurance co., tell them what's going on and what I suspect, and am then led on an oddessey that includes talking to 6 different people at 6 different phone numbers, until I finally got them to give me the exact name and address of the medical offices in Az.
Called them, at first they didn't believe me, then finally got through to one of the women in billing, who took a minute to listen to my problem. Now in the meantime I'm freaking out, calling and checking all credit card balances, and pulling up all our bank account info, etc.
The woman in Arizona pulls up the records from the date of surgery, and lo and behold, here's a guy out there, born on the same day, same name as me, only difference is middle initial, and soc. sec. #, it turns out when the doctors submitted the claim, the insurance co. used the birth date to pull up the file, and mine came up accidentally. So all in all it was a harmless clerical error, which took a total of about 24 hours and 9 phone calls, (3 long distance), to get straightened out. No real harm done, but if that wasn't a wake up call for me, I don't know what was. For about a day I had this helpless feeling that someone had stolen my identity and was running around in Arizona spending my money! lol eg
In case any of you don't know, I live in Illinois, Northwest suburbs of Chicago.
Came home from work, and found an envelope in the mail from the health insurance provider I had about 3 years ago. (we've since switched our provider at work)
It had ALL my personal info, name, address, ss#, employer, etc.
And it informed me it was denying my claim for an office visit, and 2 surgeries, at a medical office in Arizona, because I'm no longer covered by them, duh!
Funny, I've never set foot in Arizona. What a way to start the weekend! So, first things first, I call the insurance co., tell them what's going on and what I suspect, and am then led on an oddessey that includes talking to 6 different people at 6 different phone numbers, until I finally got them to give me the exact name and address of the medical offices in Az.
Called them, at first they didn't believe me, then finally got through to one of the women in billing, who took a minute to listen to my problem. Now in the meantime I'm freaking out, calling and checking all credit card balances, and pulling up all our bank account info, etc.
The woman in Arizona pulls up the records from the date of surgery, and lo and behold, here's a guy out there, born on the same day, same name as me, only difference is middle initial, and soc. sec. #, it turns out when the doctors submitted the claim, the insurance co. used the birth date to pull up the file, and mine came up accidentally. So all in all it was a harmless clerical error, which took a total of about 24 hours and 9 phone calls, (3 long distance), to get straightened out. No real harm done, but if that wasn't a wake up call for me, I don't know what was. For about a day I had this helpless feeling that someone had stolen my identity and was running around in Arizona spending my money! lol eg
