Anyone who has had to deal with all of the paperwork involved in a hospital visit can relate to the message of this article from today’s Wall Street Journal: “Escape from Claims Hell.” Excerpt:
When Jennifer McAulay walked into Lisa Norris’s office in Torrance, Calif., three years ago, she brought with her a half-dozen cardboard boxes stuffed with doctors’ bills, insurance statements, hospital records and collection notices.The documents, from two insurance companies and a slew of medical providers, reflected one teenage son’s two heart surgeries; the other’s chest surgery (including a bill for at least $25,000); and her own emergency hysterectomy. Most had accumulated over four years, metastasizing into the linen closet and a closet in the bedroom. Many of the envelopes were still unopened. Some of the bills even stemmed from her Caesarean more than a decade before.
“If I don’t get some help with this, I’m going to go absolutely insane,” Ms. McAulay, a 52-year-old IT worker in El Segundo, Calif., remembers thinking before she shoved the bills into boxes to find Ms. Norris.
In doing so, Ms. McAulay turned to one of a small number of “claims assistance professionals,” who, for a fee, will help cut through the avalanche of paperwork that can surround even the simplest medical conditions. It isn’t clear just how many individuals and companies offer such services nationwide. . .
The article goes on to note that medical claims assistance is now being marketed as a new type of employee benefit that companies can offer to employees. My guess is that it won’t be long before it becomes fairly common to offer such a benefit although it probably won’t be cheap.