Insurance Benefit: Can AARP Help?

That’s exactly what I did. Responses from everyone in the chain: mostly crickets. 

Radiology center (after putting me on hold to speak with a supervisor): “We’ve never heard of this. You know you sign a waiver saying you won’t request reimbursement for this, right?”

Insurance company: to their partial credit, after saying they hadn’t heard this, either, after I gave them the procedure code they told me that the procedure is 90% covered in-network or 50% out-of-network with a pre-approval. Better than nothing, but it’s not like this law was passed New Year’s Eve at 11:59 PM. They’ve had months to learn about this—presumably someone’s job is to pay attention to new state laws. 

Cardiologist: literally the first thing he said to me when I asked about getting this test was “You know it’s self-insured, right?” In retrospect, I interpret that as “Please don’t ask us for a pre-approval, we have enough to do.”

I’ve also considered reaching out to my state legislators, as the law (unsurprisingly) is written in fairly vague terms.

it will all be moot—I’m just going to pay the $100 out-of-pocket and move on—but it’s likely I’ll have this scan again someday and it would be nice if everyone involved knew what the real story is.