I was with Anthem and it was hard to communicate with the company. You would leave messages on voice mail and no one would return your calls. I spent two weeks on and off trying to simply upgrade my Senior Advantage policy. Frustrated, I decided to switch carriers. After all - aren't they all competitive? - I said to myself. Who to go with? All of the brochures always seem to be rose covered. You never know if any of the sweet smelling advertising is really true or what they conceal underneath.
I decided to switch to Humana: and I did so with very little effort. The service was great compared to Anthem. As soon as I received my new card about a week later I went to my local Pharmacy to fill a prescription - to my shock and dismay my co-pay was over double that of Anthem. $35 was now $84. I didn't wait to find out what the cost of my other prescriptions went up to - I just immediately cancelled my account with Humana and went back to Anthem. I suffered through the phone games again and finally got re-signed up with Anthem. The Pharmacy said that providers charge co-payments based on their negotiated wholesale cost, which is all different rates.
Humana did send me a bill for the first month some time ago. I assumed that it was invalid based on the fact that I was only on the plan for a part of January and they performed no services for me except the failed Prescription that I refused to pay for.
Today, 3/20/10, I get a notice from RMS - a collection company for the Premium for January, which was $69. There was no previous billing or notice that I owed them any money over the past two months that I am aware of. I'm disgusted and offended that they turned me in for collection without any notice.
If you are switching carriers, I suggest that you try to get quotes on your most expensive prescriptions first. You will be surprised at the variation. So my beefs with Humana are: much higher premiums for far less benefits; collection without notice; if they were reputable they never would have charged me for the first month because it caused me a lot of grief and aggravation; I guess getting the money is far more important to them than having an irate customer. After all there is a lot of money to be made screwing over someone once because there are so many new clients out there to be had. Also, I was without my medication for over a month, which was not a good thing - my glucose went out of control and I'm still trying to get it back to normal.
I'd never recommend Humana to anyone.
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