Trying to Refuse Insurance Coverage

It seems like a long time ago that my wife fell through the attic floor into the garage, breaking her left ankle and left shoulder. Oh wait, it was a long time ago – December, 2006 to be exact. The accident occurred just before she was scheduled to have surgery on her left foot to correct an arthritic condition in her big toe. She later had that surgery in February, 2007, while still recovering from the previous injuries.

To no one’s surprise, the arthritic condition has now caused problems in her right foot. Here you can see the titanium screws that were put into her left big toe, and the bone spurs in her right big toe.



She needed surgery to correct the problem, but there's been a stupid hassle with the insurance. My wife was covered by Blue Cross/Blue Shield from her work, which will pay 80% of the cost of the surgery. The insurance from my company pays 100% of such things, so she called Blue Cross/Blue Shied to cancel, and they told her it would take as long as 30 days to cancel the coverage. In other words, their bureaucratic inefficiency will cost us about $2,000. It seems incredible to me that we cannot refuse coverage until the insurance company says we may do so. Fortunately, my Human Resources manager informed me that our insurance will act as secondary insurance on the procedure, covering the 20% not covered by Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

So we hobbled back to surgery today and an hour later, she emerged with her foot wrapped up for two weeks of inactivity, punctuated by frequent pain medication.



My daughter and I will reprise our roles as gofers, caddies and chauffeurs. Thank goodness my wife doesn’t have any more big toes.