concerns about health care

[Rich Hunt]

Our health care provider is demanding that we take a 'health screening' in order to ensure that our premiums don't go up next year. If we don't take this blood test, we will have to pay $600 more per year.

The disturbing thing is that this test is being conducted by a third party, about whom we have not been informed at all.

In order to have this screening, we have to schedule an appointment ahead of time. This isn't being scheduled through the college or even through our carriers, but through this same third party whom I've never heard of.

I'm not sure how much a blood test is supposed to tell one about health problems anyway. The whole thing stinks.

When I called this company to schedule my appointment, they asked for my social security number, my home address...at which point I told them that this was too much information to give out to some company whose integrity has not been guaranteed to us.

I do think that our employer and our carrier owe us the assurance of the integrity of this company. All this 'third party' does is assure us that our employer does not get this information.

Well, shit - I'm not afraid of the employer, although I do think they owe us an explanation. But really, it is this mysterious "Health Solutions" company that I'm suspicious of. I don't know who works there, who might get their hands on our info, and I don't know why they need our SS#s and home addresses just to conduct a blood test. The employer and the health care provider already have that information, and apparently that's bad enough, because someone DID get hold of some of our SS#s already. It's a reasonable concern, no?

Their literature says that they're 'health care professionals' with Master's Degrees. Then what are they doing gathering people's addresses and SS#s, among other things?

I called to schedule because I thought this would be like getting a vaccination - you know, where you schedule it with your employer and the outside 'provider' just gives the vaccines.

What is really going on here?

[Gormy Cuss]

1. Did you voice your concerns to your employer's HR rep?

If you don't get the screening test, you know what will happen (premiums increase.) What happens if you do agreed to the blood test? Who gets results? What tests are conducted? Does the health insurer guarantee that the results will not affect your premium rate or coverage?

Your security concerns are valid.

It sounds like your employer got a rate reduction by agreeing to have employees screened. You may still feel compelled to do it, but it can't hurt to let your employer know your concerns. Every time employees just put up with these intrusions, insurers and employers keep heaping them on.

[Rich Hunt]

2. I did voice my concerns

I was very polite about it, but when she was snotty and basically shilling for this company, I told her that my SS# and other people's SS#s had been compromised, and that we were entitled to some answers.

She didn't reply, just apologized for these guys and mumbled about how they "needed the information." She still wasn't clear what for.

At that point I did get angry at her, since she refused to take my concerns seriously. I told her that if they were demanding all this money if we didn't take it, we were entitled to more information.

The company's website is uninformative, and they provided no literature - the little flyer we got was printed on HR stationery.

[pitohui]

3. report it to your state's insurance commissioner

i'm not sure that extortion of $600 is even legal but maybe if you ask the state insurance commissioner to look into their request for yr SSN you can get this stopped

[Rich Hunt]

4. it just does not sound legitimate to me

It's $600 more for the family plan, and $300 more for the individual plan, and all this 'screening' is is a blood test.

I was hospitalized last December, and they took plenty of my blood. Nobody back then told me I had kidney disease or diabetes or whatever handful of things you can glean from this.

I mean, I really expected something more like the vaccines they sometimes offer, or blood pressure tests, where the nurses or nurses aides don't ask for you SS# and home address.

See, I've got some privacy concerns right now, since I'm being harassed. I told the woman in HR that, and she just kept on apologizing for these people instead of acknowledging my legitimate concerns.

This third-party 'company' has a most uninformative website - they don't provide any credentials, history, certification...absolutely NO information about who they are, what they do, and what their mission or values are. When you purport to be in the health care business, you are OBLIGATED to establish trust in your 'customers'. Well, in this case we're really not a customer.

But I'll take you up on your suggestions.

And thanks you guys!

[Wapsie B]

5. Trouble is the insurance commissioner

is normally a rubber stamp for the insurance industry. Show me one with cajones to take on a company that most likely has many jobs in that area and they'll have my admiration.