After a few more calls, Jim drove to a pop-up Covered California shop in the Laguna Hills Mall on Jan. 15, 2014, the deadline for adding coverage. He hoped to avoid website computer glitches and phone hang-ups. All we had were verbal assurances, which were not enough to see the cardiologist and a urologist at the insurance-negotiated rate. Receptionists at the doctors’ offices said we could pay cash: $150 per visit for the urologist, $203 for the cardiologist, plus lab and treatment expenses.
On Jan. 22, we finally got our enrollment number and made our first payment to Blue Cross so we could start seeing doctors. Jim went to his cardiologist on Feb. 10, only to discover the doctor had left Blue Cross.
Thus began a session of musical chairs as we tried to match our insurance to the doctors we wanted to see before the music stopped. This was one time we had the advantage over an employer-sponsored health plan, which has only one open enrollment period in a year. Due to the start-up problems with state insurance exchanges, the deadline for Affordable Care Act insurance kept being pushed back, allowing us to change coverage twice.
We canceled Blue Cross and enrolled in Blue Shield so Jim could see his urologist. Then, when the urologist’s office said they didn’t accept Blue Shield patients enrolled through the state exchange, we canceled California Covered Blue Shield and bought directly from the insurance company, even though that meant foregoing the subsidies.
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