Comment by trocadero | Hacker News Reader

Comment by trocadero | Hacker News Reader

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>I felt I shouldn't claim the first bills because I hadn't informed them before the procedure. And yes, because it turned out to be a fairly manageable bill.

What you did after the accident was reasonable. Claim the bills that you were covered for.

> And yes, because it turned out to be a fairly manageable bill. But the 2nd procedure was going to be considerably more, so I notified them. To clarify, I didn't want any long term care at all, I was only asking them to cover the 2nd operation that I was already scheduled in for.

Which they specifically told you you weren't covered for.

Your article says

>At this point, it’s 4 days until my scheduled surgery to have a plate fitted in my hand, and each reply from Insure and Go takes 3–4 days

The e-mails you include from Insure and Go have time stamps of June 6 and June 7. Perhaps they took more time before or after that, but during the time sensitive part of your narrative they were responsive. It was you that didn't respond to their June 7 e-mail requesting the not fit to fly until at least June 12.

I always replied to them immediately, it's just I didn't get the written "not fit to fly" until I saw the DRs again, which was the day of the surgery. I had told the insurers that the DR's had already "told" me I wasn't, and that I would get the written form when I next met them. I had to decide between having the surgery or not at that point. I couldn't go back on Monday morning, ask the Dr for his letter, and hold off on the operation until my insurer emails back. Which coincidentally they didn't do until the 19th, 7 days later.

Did you do this?

>The patient may want to forward onto the treating doctor to help point out to us where in the manual the reason why he is not fit to fly as our decision would still be curtailment and he would have been fit to fly. http://www.iata.org/publications/Pages/medical-manual.aspx

No I didn't, that email was 7 days after the surgery, I had already left Singapore and was back in Bali by then. (My "not fit to fly" letter stated I was not fit 'before' having the surgery, once the plate was in and the swelling had resided I was OK)

Well, I'm sure your doctor will see your blog post and write up a new letter for you. Of course in the off chance that this method is ineffective you could, y'know, call or e-mail the doctor's office and ask them to write the letter your insurance company wants. Honestly, I don't see what the insurance company is doing wrong at this point. They've told you exactly what you need in order get your surgery covered yet your refuse to provide the document that they are reasonably asking for. You have two super simple steps to recovering 10s of thousands of dollars:

(1) Claim your expenses that are clearly covered by your policy. The care in Bali, taxi ride in Bali, Flight to Singapore, Taxi in Singapore, Hospital stay, and the hotel in Singapore. That's gotta be at least $6,000 that you're just leaving on the table.

(2) Call your Doctor and ask him to write a better letter in support of your claim. It should be something like this:

To Whom it may concern,

I have reviewed the IATA manual and my patient Mr. Badger was unfit to fly pending his surgery. The manual states:

The following tables are provided as a guide to the timeframe that should elapse between a medical event and the intended flight. The timeframes may be changed following considered medical assessment of a specific case.

After my medical assessment I found Mr. Badger unfit to fly because:

(1) [Bad thing that might happen] because [medical reason bad thing might happen] (2) [Bad thing that might happen] because [medical reason bad thing might happen] (3) [Bad thing that might happen] because [medical reason bad thing might happen]

Thank You,

Dr So and So

Because they said "No further medical input needed." which is a fairly clear "we don't require any more input from anybody, we've made our decision."

If after they "review" my case they ask again, I will reach out to the DR who treated me and waste more of his time, but I'm confident the insurance company would have still found a way to weasel out of it, even if the DR had been more explicit. I imagine it wasn't his first time writing a "not fit to fly" note, after all...

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