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Comment by lp4v4n

>The popular image of a denial is an insurer overruling a doctor on whether a treatment is needed. That is the exception. Only about 5% of denied in-network claims were turned down because the care was deemed not medically necessary. The rest were administrative, for an excluded service, for a missing referral or prior authorization, or for a reason the insurer never specified.

When an insurance company denies a health claim overruling a doctor, it can be necessarily concluded that either:

1. somehow the company knows more about the patient's condition and the doctor is wrong

2. the doctor is defrauding the system and the insurance company caught the doctor cheating

3. the company is defrauding its clients.

There is no middle ground honestly, and yet "5% of denied in-network claims were turned down because the care was deemed not medically necessary".

This is absolutely crazy and evil. I would expect a few thousand cases annually and probably for million of cases you get denied what you pay for because "we detected your doctor is wrong and we're not paying".

>In fact the single largest category, 36% of denials, was an unexplained "other." A system that rejects tens of millions of claims a year and files more than 1/3 of those rejections under no stated reason is hard for an outsider, or a member, to audit.

I can't even imagine getting lifesaving care denied because of "other". I didn't know things were so grim in the USA and honestly now I'm kinda surprised that more people are not getting "Luigi'd".

parent lp4v4n 4 months ago

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