Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho…HMO’s Have Got to Go: InHumana, cont’d.

Dear Readers: I beg your indulgence one more time, so that I can finish the narrative of my previous post, “InHumana”.

After spending untold hours yelling and screaming, complaining and pressuring the folks at InHumana, my mother was transferred to another facility late yesterday afternoon.

My day began by contacting InHumana’s Customer Service department, and after speaking to one woman, I asked her to transfer me to a supervisor. I told both the CSR and her supervisor that the facility my mother was in was a dump and a roach motel.

I criticized the company for limiting the choices of facilities in my county, and as I said in my previous post, that was like wanting to buy a car, and your auto insurance company limits your choices to x number of dealers, and an even smaller number of models to choose from, which corresponds to number of “InHumana beds” available in each contracted facility.

While the supervisor escalated the issue to the Access to Care team, I contacted InHumana’s CEO and President, Bruce D. Broussard’s assistant. She transferred me to their Expedited Resolution team, and spoke to two women.

I had previously sent my article, “InHumana” to Mr. Broussard on Sunday evening after I wrote it, and informed all four women I spoke to. I also tweeted Mr. Broussard throughout the day.

I gave InHumana an alternate choice, and was informed some time later that they did not have any “InHumana beds” available at that facility. I told the women that I did not care if they were contracted or not contracted with a better facility, I wanted my mother taken out of there by end of business day.

I told them that as a $41 billion dollar company, that is about to be sold to Aetna, they can afford to spend a little more to put my mother in a better facility. They informed me that because she was in their Medicaid HMO, she was limited to certain facilities.

In the meantime, I called that dump, and spoke to the Case Manager there and informed her that I was upset with the quality of the facility, and that I wanted to have my mother removed from there. She also said I was limited because of her insurance, and said the same thing to her that I said to InHumana.

I threatened to call our attorney if InHumana or the roach motel did not get her out of there, and spoke to his assistant, who had returned my previous call from the previous Friday.

Later in the afternoon, I received a phone call from a woman from InHumana who said she was the representative for this area of Florida. She was contacted to assist, and was having my mother’s case reviewed by their medical director.

After doing some more yelling and screaming at the Expedited Resolution team member to get my mother out of that roach motel, I received a call from the Admissions person at the first facility we contacted on Sunday. She told me that they had a patient go home and that there was a bed available, and that they were going to make arrangements to have my mother transferred.

So it wasn’t due to InHumana’s efforts that my mother got out of that roach motel, but rather serendipity that a patient went home, thus opening up a bed.

But it did not have to be that way. This could have ended early on in the process if InHumana was more interested in the medical care of the patient, instead of protecting their bottom-line, and their shareholder’s value, not to mention the compensation Mr. Broussard must be getting, which would probably cover my mother’s stay in this new facility for quite a long time.

Today I informed by the Admissions office that InHumana only pays for TWENTY DAYS of rehab, and since she spent one day in that roach motel, we already used one day, so we have nineteen more days for them to pay.

After that, it becomes our responsibility, at $150 a day. I don’t know how long she is going to be there, but we don’t have that kind of money, so I will contact our lawyer for his advice,

This is why, along with the aggravation they put me through yesterday, I called this article, “Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho…HMO’s Have Got to Go”.

THEY ARE CHEAP BASTARDS.