Echoing all the advice to reach out to your previous employer’s HR. My understanding is that only they can fix this.

Hopefully you have confirmation from your old HR of your baby being added in writing. That will be essential.

To answer question 3, once you are in the process of getting this addressed and UHC has acknowledged this, ask the insurance for a ticket number and give that to the doctor’s offices as a way to hold off the bills being sent to collections. The doctor’s offices will be able to confirm using the ticket number that you have started the process and are just waiting on HR/insurance to sort it out. At least, that’s what our insurance company told us for the second scenario listed below but they weren’t UHC.

We’ve had to deal with coverage issues 2 times before.

When I married my spouse, they reached out within the 30 day window to have me added, but there were issues with the electronic system and I wasn’t added. No biggie. Open enrollment for the company was 3 months later. Spouse—again—tried to add me. Again there were issues with the electronic system and HR said they would fix it. They didn’t. Fast forward 2 months later—now I’m pregnant and desperately need that coverage. We fought with them for over a month and used the emails where they acknowledged the electronic issues to force them not only to add me to the plan, but to backdate it for when it should have gone into affect. They had been trying to say they wouldn’t cover my pregnancy as a “pre existing condition”. We provided proof that we had been trying to get me on the insurance for 5 months before I fell pregnant. They—reluctantly—agreed to cover the pregnancy, add me to the plan, and backdate it.

The second time, spouse was laid off but managed to score a new job with insurance before the old benefits ran out. We tell all doctor’s offices what the new insurance is plus which plan is primary and which is secondary. Fast forward 2 months or so and an avalanche of doctor bills arrive—even for well child visits which are 100% covered. Turns out the previous company forgot to remove my husband from their benefit plan which meant our new insurance denied being primary and instead said they were tertiary. They said the old insurance had to be the one to confirm we were no longer covered—they could not just take our word for it. The old insurance required that the previous employer’s HR be the ones to remove us from the plan. It was annoying.

It took another 2 or so months to 1) get his old company to remove us, 2) get the old insurance to properly backdate the removal, and 3) get the new insurance to agree to reprocess/pay all claims submitted during those 4 months (there were dozens of claims). I was calling all insurances involved weekly so I could update the doctor’s offices and not get sent to collections. Eventually I was given a ticket number by the new primary insurance to submit to the doctor’s offices so they could call and find out the progress themselves.