Katsmeow
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2009
- Messages
- 5,308
I'm insured on DH's retiree plan. This year it switched from Aetna to United Healthcare so I'm still getting used to the new plan.
Anyway, I was looking at the EOBs from a recent visit I had to the ER and I was surprised to see the option to pay the hospital and the out of network physician (it burns me up that I can go to an in network hospital, have no choice on the ER physician and then have him be out of network).
There are options to also pay physicians through it (for example my allergist) but in those cases I've already directly paid the physician.
However, when I went to the ER we weren't asked to pay anything there in the ER and I haven't received a bill. But, I can pay directly from the myuhc.com website.
That would be convenient (we are paying the full discounting ER charge and most of the physician charge since we hadn't met our deductible before) since I could just do it online.
I just don't know if anyone has had any problems with this and the provider not getting the money or not realizing they had been paid, that kind of thing.
I found this article talking about United Healthcare doing this.
UnitedHealthcare's New Online Service Lets Consumers Pay Their Medical Bills Online and Better Manage Health Care Expenses | InstaMed
And apparently providers have to sign up to be eligible to have payments made to them through this. So supposedly the providers should be onboard with patients paying this way. But, it is a new thing so I wondered if anyone had experience with it.
Anyway, I was looking at the EOBs from a recent visit I had to the ER and I was surprised to see the option to pay the hospital and the out of network physician (it burns me up that I can go to an in network hospital, have no choice on the ER physician and then have him be out of network).
There are options to also pay physicians through it (for example my allergist) but in those cases I've already directly paid the physician.
However, when I went to the ER we weren't asked to pay anything there in the ER and I haven't received a bill. But, I can pay directly from the myuhc.com website.
That would be convenient (we are paying the full discounting ER charge and most of the physician charge since we hadn't met our deductible before) since I could just do it online.
I just don't know if anyone has had any problems with this and the provider not getting the money or not realizing they had been paid, that kind of thing.
I found this article talking about United Healthcare doing this.
UnitedHealthcare's New Online Service Lets Consumers Pay Their Medical Bills Online and Better Manage Health Care Expenses | InstaMed
And apparently providers have to sign up to be eligible to have payments made to them through this. So supposedly the providers should be onboard with patients paying this way. But, it is a new thing so I wondered if anyone had experience with it.
