Patient Stories: Portraits of coverage denied
Got a story of insurance denial? Share it in our Stories Album. Help paint the picture of patient experiences across the country that show how much remains to be done to end discrimination in the states.
Insurance companies must start including integrative healthcare professionals in their provider networks.
Please consider contributing your experience — as a patient or as a provider on behalf of patients — submitting claims for reimbursement of service that companies have then denied. This is one way that we can illustrate the many inconsistencies in — and outright denial of — coverage across the country when comes to your choice of licensed integrative care providers. This includes companies insuring a service like acupuncture, but only when performed by an MD, while licensed acupuncturists across the street are clearly intended by Section 2706 to bill for services as independent providers.
Other examples include a mother’s preference for a certified professional midwife to attend at birth, but being told by her insurer that midwives are not covered — that the standard hospital-based services they do cover are entirely adequate. That may be functionally true, but totally misses the point of the intent of Section 2706: to put the power of choice into the hands of the health services consumer.
These stories are one way to describe the reality of the value Americans have placed on their use of integrative disciplines and on access to the licensed providers of their choice: for some 30 years!
Once a story is submitted we will review and may follow up with a question before posting to the site.
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