photoguy
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2010
- Messages
- 2,301
We've not had any issues so far, though we live in an urban area. Our regular hospital, labs, doctors and urgent care are all on our Covered CA plan and the list of network doctors seems quite large. Only our eye doctor was not on our Covered CA plan, but finding another one was not a problem. There are 1.5M Covered California customers so are 51 Blue Shield and 94 Anthem complaints in the link above indicative of a huge problem? We do always confirm with the doctors / labs that they are in network and do not go solely by the provider lists, though sometimes in our experience they leave out providers that are actually in network, so it is more likely a problem with accuracy than planned deception.
If the insurance company provider lists have 9 - 13% error rates as mentioned in the article, that doesn't quite jibe with the man who said he was calling all over and no one would take Covered California. If the provider network lists are 87 - 91% accurate, then it would seem like if he made calls for appointments based on the lists, the majority of doctors he called would still be in network.
We also have not had any problems with doctors not taking ACA plans in california (or in other states we traveled through). We didn't have a regular set of doctors but have now settled in San Diego and just look them up in the provider list. One or two had long wait lists but it wasn't a problem to find another close-by physician.