Blue Shield can suck it

I already hate Blue Shield for a number of reasons: their coverage is often random and seems governed by whimsy, they they keep asking us to prove that I do not have health insurance elsewhere, despite the fact we have explained I do not, their customer service staff generally has no idea how to help and on several different occasions when I called them, during business hours no less, it was impossible to reach a human, as in, when I asked to be transferred to a human the voice mail said something to the effect of "Sorry, too busy--no humans available right now, call back later" and hung up on me. Those are but a few reasons why I hate them for the bureaucratic, money-grubbing company they are (and if you feel like telling me I should be happy I have insurance, keep it to yourself. Yes, we are fortunate to have insurance--that doesn't mean I have to be pleased with how said insurance company conducts business).

Yesterday we received a letter which just made it all suck just a little bit more. Well, actually, S. received the letter, because, you know, a 20-month old is certainly able to read and understand correspondence from insurance agencies. The letter informs S. that Blue Shield has canceled its contract with Lucille Packard Children's Hospital and Stanford Health Services and if one receives care from them Blue Shield will only pay the minimal non-preferred provider coverage AND the patient has to pay costs up front and wait for reimbursement from Blue Shield. WTF? Because, you know, we always have an extra 20K lying around to pay out for a hospitalization. LPCH provides all neo-natal intensive care services for our local hospital. It is where most anyone in the area needing a children's specialist goes. It is where we now go to get S.'s blood drawn when needed. The impact of this is huge, not so much for us, but for so many families in our area. We still have Children's Hospital in Oakland, but who knows if Blue Shield has kept a contract with them? (S. only got this letter because he was a patient at LPCH as an infant in the NICU and as an outpatient as a toddler). Yes, I will be calling Blue Shield this week to find out AND to find out what this means for people delivering at our local hospital. If a baby needs a NICU at our local hospital they are either kept at the local hospital in the level 2 NICU run by LPCH, or transferred to Stanford for level 3 care at LPCH proper. I guess this all means more money for Blue Shield.

Feh.

I am just pissed off at having this option made much, much, much more expensive and inaccessible to us.