Need to replace UnitedHealthcare. Opinions on other plans?

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MondaysChild
MondaysChild Member Posts: 591
edited June 2014 in Employment, Insurance, and Other Financial Issues

We have UnitedHealthcare for insurance and I have had not a single issue with coverage for anything and everything during my two years since diagnosis, except for one problem that was created solely by an employee in a physician's office. Unrelated to cancer I have had few issues with UHC prior to that.

However, United and the major chain of hospitals in the Tampa, Florida area have just parted company. That leaves us with few acceptable hospital choices:  Tampa General Hospital, which is a good hospital but a very large teaching hospital.  I would not want it to be the only one I will use but that will be the case now.  The only others now available are Florida Hospital, Memorial and Town and Country.  My personal opinion is that these three all have substandard care which I know from own experience or that of others.  And not just one experience but multiple, especially with Florida Hospital.  Horrible, so that is just is not an option under any circumstance.  So with only Tampa General now an option under UnitedHealthcare insurance, we will be changing carriers for the group health plan offered in our company. 

Please let me know your experiences with Cigna, Humana and Aetna. These are the main three we will probably consider.  Have you had any problems with claims being denied?

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  • MondaysChild
    MondaysChild Member Posts: 591
    edited November 2012

    Thanks, Sherrie.  It sounds like your experience with Aetna has been as good as mine with UnitedHealthcare PPO.  I just now have a problem with them because there are almost no real Tampa hospital choices for us anymore.  UHC claims it has 21 hospitals still available in Tampa, but they are counting surrounding counties with hospitals 30-35 miles away and also counting our local NCI cancer center which is fine, but obviously not a regular hospital.  So I have only a large teaching hospital and substandard ones as of today.  One of the hospitals of the 4 in Tampa has even recently had its surgical ward shut down by the State of Florida for poor care/inadequate nursing staff resulting in multiple patient deaths.  When I say I perceive substandard care in the hospitals other than Tampa General, I seriously mean it!  This is very scary for me now.  Thanks for sharing your experience with Aetna and I now know to consider it as very possible.

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  • Spookiesmom
    Spookiesmom Member Posts: 9,568
    edited January 2013

    I have Humana, and in the 3-4 years Pinellas Schools have offered it, it has been great, no hassles with cancer treatment, or any of my other health issues.



    Just saw this, hope it helps.

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  • Susie123
    Susie123 Member Posts: 804
    edited January 2013

    I live in North Georgia and also have United Healthcare. We had a similar problem about 6 months ago when UHC and the best large hospital in our area could not negotiate a new contract so we received notification from my husbands employer that the hospital was no longer a PPO provider. That lasted for about a week and they were magically able to reach an agreement and were part of the PPO network again. Hopefully both the hospitals and UHC will decide it's in their best interest to fix their issues there too. :)

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  • dlb823
    dlb823 Member Posts: 9,430
    edited January 2013

    MondaysChild, we've had CIGNA for several years, including throughout my bc tx, and I can't say enough wonderful things about them.  They are incredibly responsive and really nice when you call with a question.  The only denial I got from them was for a wig, and "cranial prothesis" or other wording didn't make any difference.  They just flat out don't cover that.  But for everything else they've always gone above & beyond my expectations, process claims extremely quickly, and are easy to get ahold of and very caring and intelligent when you have questions.  Compared to BCBS we had previously, it's like night & day.       Deanna  

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  • MondaysChild
    MondaysChild Member Posts: 591
    edited January 2013

    Thanks, Spookiesmom and Deanna.  We ending up switching our employees to BCBS as of Jan 1.  I will see how it goes and appreciate the info on the other insurance companies.  Our insurance consultant explained that we could change anytime during the year if we did not like it.  That made the switch less concerning, especially since any satisfaction of deductibles and max out-of-pocket payments would carry over after the switch to a new company.  Very surprised to learn that and it sealed the deal.

    Susie123, I have seen that where negotiations go to the brink between several hospitals and carriers of the past few years.  Unfortunately, UnitedHealth Care and the BayCare health system never resolved this one and it appears to be a permanent break.  So we did end up leaving UHC in order to have more than just Tampa General as an acceptable hospital.

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  • Susie123
    Susie123 Member Posts: 804
    edited January 2013

    I think you will be happy with BCBS. We had that for 20 years and it was great, actually better than UHC. Unfortunately our employer no longer offers BCBS as an option.

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