Released: October 21, 2009

Health insurer tries to avoid owning up to error

Source: David Lazarus, Los Angeles Times (Free Registration)

Who should pay when a health insurer screws up? Not the insurer, apparently.

Seal Beach resident Kelley Barton wanted to be sure that a treatment would be approved by Anthem Blue Cross when she sought medical care last year for her 14-year-old son, who had suffered from chronic constipation since he was a little boy.

“I wouldn’t even schedule the procedure until I knew it was covered,” Barton, 51, told me. “I knew it probably wouldn’t be cheap, and I didn’t want to have to fight about it with my insurance company.”

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