A Moment to Vent About Insurance Approval

I have been waiting for insurance approval with Cigna for five weeks now, and it seems endless. It's coming up on the 30 business days they have legally to give me a response.

I am a female, 5'4", about 215 pounds, and have diabetes. I have met all of Cigna's requirements for approval, including the three-month supervised diet, psych evaluation, and recommendation from my endocrinologist.

I lost my job a few weeks ago, and have Cobra coverage now. I'm afraid Cigna will find some reason to deny me.

Between the stress of waiting on this approval, job hunting, worrying about funds, worrying about all the life changes coming up, and just generally not knowing what the future holds in the next few months, I'm very unhappy and depressed.

I'm sure many of you have had to jump through crazy hoops. Did any of you have any epic wait times or have your insurance impose additional requirements? If insurance denies, what steps do you have to take to try again? Do you just have to self-pay at that point?

Thanks for any experiences of your own you can share!

FWIW my insurer didn't approve my surgery until yesterday ... perhaps because I called them personally and shook the tree, as suggested by someone here on OH.  In the first call I was told that they had no record of submission, which made both me and the surgeon's facilitator VERY angry to hear.  On the second call they admitted that it had indeed been submitted, but was just sitting on a nurse's desk getting pushed back by emergency cases after their office being closed for five days after the superstorm, etc.  It was submitted in the middle of October and took this long.

My insurer required I that attend three nutrition sessions instead of the usual one session, and they had to be 30 days apart.  If not for the extra two months added on for that, I might have had my surgery weeks ago. 

I'm sorry I don't have information about your other questions, but I will say that I hope you hang in there!

are you talking direct to the insurance company? are you talking to the pre-authorization folks rather than regular customer service?  I have the pre-auth number at work, but won't be going bac****il Tuesday, but if you call the regular customer service line, they will give it to you if you ASK.

 

Once you get through the automated system to someone at pre-auth, ask for a supervisor--and ask them what the hold up is...they will give you the information... 

 

I wish you the best, it sucks that you pay for insurance and then still have to jump through hoops to get what you need--but don't give up!

Call everyday! and I  mean everyday. I deal with submitting patients out to insurance and make sure you get the preauthorization department. Cigna can and will take its time when getting an authorization. see if you can get the auth number from your case manager at your doctors office. Dont give up... and keep calling

Thanks, everyone. The crazy thing is that the woman who works with insurance at my surgeon's office has told me not to call Cigna anymore, as every time I call, it adds a "case" to my file, which slows down approval.

I don't have Cigna but my insurance waited to the very last legal day to approve when I got the band.  That was after finding out the center hadn't submitted it to the insurance as they were waiting on my doctor to send last 4 years records.  Total time almost three months after I met requirements. 

I have Cigna ans took them exactly 30 days for response after 2 denials. Call them everyday but call the pre-authorization dept instead of customer care.

Good luck!
Jessie