My husband and I are self employed and have been without health insurance for quite sometime now. We decided we wanted to start a family and both agreed health insurance would be needed. I stated my task. Like many of you I went online and filled out some information to get free quotes. A few days pass and I have been on the phone with many providers in the range of $300 and up for coverage.
Needless to say when I received a call from Tom at CHBA and he told me he cold offer me a discount health plan for only $139.95 a month I was amazed. Not only did that cover me but my husband and soon to have child as well. Wow if this was not a too good to be true offer. I explained to Tom we wanted to start a family and other insurance offers I had to wait 24 months before they covered it or wait 18 months and so on. He explained how his plan would cover me in just after 24 hrs wait. Also they would cover the OBGYN, sonograms, prenatal/post natal care, and immunizations for the baby and so on. I was so excited I couldn't believe this was possible. Also he said with all that I would only have to pay 30% of the hospital bill and office visits.
Along with the plan I could get vision and dental discount at 65% plus life insurance of $15K. Sold. I wanted in right away.
What catches my senses now is while Tom was explaining to me all the benefits he told me a story about a guy that he spoke to was hemming and haaaing over if he should join because it was a limited time offer to his area and he decided to wait. Then the same man called back and he was in the emergency room with his son (a child of course) and his son had broken his leg and the bone was showing and all that stuff. So then he went on to tell me how the father wanted to join so his son would be covered and Tom had to decline him because it took 24 hours to take effect and the time cut off has closed for his area.
Take note!!! After I agreed to sign up he told me that if I signed up additional people in my area (referred them to CHBA) I would get discounts on my plan. So when does this imaginary cut off time take effect? Hits me now but not while I was on the phone with him.
Anyways turns out that in my rural area the closest doctors I would need are about 80 miles away. Eye doctors that accept the plan. Blood test would be about 150 miles away from me. What a great plan right? Nope.
Skipping forward I went to the emergency room and received my bill last week. I call to speak to someone and their office closes 3:00 pm ETon Fridays. Figures. I called Monday and my call got answered after waiting about 20 minutes on hold. Then the person I need to speak with, Cecilia (the one of two people who handles ALL hospital bills for all their clients) is on the other line and will call me back. No call back for 1 hour so I call again. After being on hold again for what seems like ever I get kicked to an answering machine. I leave a message. No call back. I am pissed now. I do not believe someone could not get back to me that day.
So I call the next morning. No answer except by a machine. Again I leave a message. No call back in 1 1/2 hours. I call back. This time instead of using the option #7 for hospital bill assistance I go to I believe option #3 which is if you are at a pharmacy and need help with a prescription. So I try that one. One would think if you are standing at the pharmacy counter someone should pick up the phone to help you. Wrong. I was on hold even longer this way.
When the answering machine kicked on I kept pressing any keys I could. First the 0, then the *, then the #. One of them kicked my call back in queue to be answered. Finally someone answered. First thing I said was how many people do you have in your customer service department? Lockseen (sorry about spelling) she told me "a few". Great. A few. Makes me feel all better knowing that I pay $139.95 a month so that my calls can't even be answered because they only have a hand full of employees.
So anyway I am fed up at this point. 8 phone calls in and I get a person. I demanded a supervisor immediately. I told Lockseen their customer service was ridicules. She immediately got defensive and rude. Raising her voice back to me. I will admit I was not calm and gentle but you have to understand how frustrating and demeaning it can be for someone to ignore you and not return a call after probably hours on hold for these people (if you add up all the calls I made to them). So then I say just give me a supervisor. She is all pissed off and demands my customer # before she can transfer me. Then she comes back on the line after putting me on hold for about 5 minutes to then transfer me to Cecilia in hospital bills dept.
What a joke. No supervisor ever came onto the phone and Cecilia said she couldn't help me until she received the hospital bills and then gave me some long drawn out process of how it would work. At this point I was online looking at complaint reading some posts about how this company was a scam while I was on the phone with her. That was enough for me. I told her I wanted to cancel my account immediately and she said she could help me with that. Then she puts me on hold and actually transferred me to someone else in cancellations.
Ok now getting a real run around. I knew I had to get this cancelled right away before they loss me call on between all the transferred. Anyways got on the phone with Carolynn now in the cancellations department. I told her cancel my account immediately I was pissed off and frustrated. She asked why...? I said "This company in my opinion is a scam. No returned calls, constant run around when I want answers and I am completely unhappy with the customer service." She then pulls up my account and starts to ready me all my notes since the time I signed up how I spoke to people prior to this incident and how they are working with me and so on. I said "Carolynn there is no need to keep reading me these notes. I want to cancel my account effective immediately." Next thing I know I am sitting listening to silence. I thought she was doing some work on the computer to cancel my account but that was not the case. She had hung up on me. Great.
So needless to say I had to cancel a certain bank account so they did not continue to charge me. Obviously they know how their company works to scam people out of their money and misrepresent themselves as helping people who can not afford insurance.
All I want to get across to other people is DO NOT fall for this company's scam. It is basically throwing money out the window. You are better off giving that monthly premium to a homeless person or donate it to a charitable cause because at least you would know your money is doing something good. Not supporting con artists.
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