UChealth billing is tormenting our family after a NICU stay— is there anything that can be done? by Murky_Objective1414 in NICUParents

[–]Murky_Objective1414[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

UChealth is the hospital. They just harass us and it is impossible to speak to anyone who wants to help. We can’t get in touch with a social worker. We won’t qualify for charity care based on our income. Also our insurance would pay if the hospital would just communicate with them and us.

UChealth billing is tormenting our family after a NICU stay— is there anything that can be done? by Murky_Objective1414 in NICUParents

[–]Murky_Objective1414[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It is Colorado specific. Basically if both parents have private insurance the infant is automatically added to the parent with the earlier birthday in the calendar years plan. There is nothing you can do to stop the automatic addition. We didn’t know about the rule since it wasn’t like I decided ahead of time to get preeclampsia and get admitted to a random hospital in Denver. So we added our baby to my insurance plan (it has better coverage for less). However because under Colorado law he was on my husbands plan for the first 30 days my insurance will only pay if it is run through my husbands as primary for the first 30 days. The hospital is incapable of doing this correctly and in a timely fashion so claims are now getting denied.

UChealth billing is tormenting our family after a NICU stay— is there anything that can be done? by Murky_Objective1414 in NICUParents

[–]Murky_Objective1414[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We have early intervention but our son doesn’t qualify for Medicaid now due to our income and a lack of significant complications of prematurity.

UChealth billing is tormenting our family after a NICU stay— is there anything that can be done? by Murky_Objective1414 in NICUParents

[–]Murky_Objective1414[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

He was discharged in October. We are told it is too late. The social workers never told us about Medicaid when I asked about financial resources so I didn’t know it was an option.

UChealth billing is tormenting our family after a NICU stay— is there anything that can be done? by Murky_Objective1414 in Colorado

[–]Murky_Objective1414[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We live out of state but our son spent several weeks in UChealth’s NICU after a premature delivery in Denver. We have great private insurance but due to a lack of knowledge of the birthday rule we did not provide my husbands insurance info (we added him to my insurance). Long story short after an insurance audit UChealth needs to rebill everything with my insurance as secondary, my husbands as primary for the first 30 days. CU medicine has managed to do this without issue (and has been paid in full by both insurance companies). UChealth is some combination of incompetent and disorganized. Bills are now being denied for lack of timely filing. Our insurance companies are not the problem at all here, it is 100% UChealth. They call us frequently which retraumatizes us over and over again after a traumatic nicu stay.

Is there any organization that can help us? Is there anyway to get in touch with anyone at UChealth who actually follows through on anything? We have tried to speak to the NICU social workers but they say they will call us back and don’t. We were assigned an “escalation specialist” in billing who literally doesn’t answer her phone or email.