United Health Care?

[airial95]

Right now, the kids and I are covered by my company's health plan, which is a self insured PPO. It's been fine thus far, and all of our specialists (including Dr. Murphy) have been in network.

 

We got an email last night saying that we're switching as of March 1st to United Health Care. I don't know any more details on it (as to what type of plan) and they're having informational meetings over the next two weeks. I thought I read on here somewher that United is one of the few that cover IVIG.

 

My husband is covered by Aetna through his firm, but putting the kids on his plan would be very expensive - but it might be worth it if they are better for PANDAS coverage.

 

Any thoughts/experiences you can share?

[peglem]

We've been very happy w/ UHC. They've covered monthly IVIG for almost a year now and I've easily worked out any problems with them.

[dcmom]

We have UHC- although ultimately my dh's company is self insured. I do gripe a lot- but we have had relatively good luck: no problems covering daily zith for over a year, and, although it took leg work, they eventually approved pex for both of my girls.

[dabel]

We recently switched from BCBS to UHC. BCBS would not cover IVIG for my son but with UHC he is approved for monthly. My other son was just approved for hd IVIG also. I am not doing anymore IVIG on the oldest and am probably not going to do it on the next one either but at least it is approved if I change my mind. Anyway, UHC is much more IVIG friendly than most.

[cfamily]

I just switched my company to uhc due to the possible necessity of ivig. My insurance agent vf'd that for me.

[MomWithOCDSon]

My company made the switch from BCBS to United Health Care just January 1. Thus far, I'm less than impressed, but that may be an isolated experience. BCBS was covering our Augmentin XR (both label and generic) to the extent that the label cost me a maximum of $50 for a month's worth, and the generic was a mere $15 for a month long prescription. First renewal under UHC, and they refused to cover it at all! I shelled out over $230 for one month's worth of the generic! I'm planning to fight for some coverage, but that was a wake-up call!

[airial95]

Thanks for the feedback, both good and bad. I thought that I had read before that UHC covered IVIG - which is good. We're not there yet He's supposed to go back on the abx next month if we think he needs it (we just wanted, but it's good to know it's an easier option if we need it.

 

He got to 85% on abx, and has been off for about 2 monhts and has only backslid to about 75% (but we're doing CBT/ERP for the residual OCD, so I blame that for part of the backslide too - we're bascially forcing the OCD induced tantrums - but it's helping!!!)

We're supposed to put him back on the abx next month (if we think he needs it, we just stopped to give his system a rest). So I'll have to make sure that they'll cover it before we make the decision between Aetna and UHC.

 

The only concern I'm having at the moment is that it appears that our pediatrician is in their network - which is great because he's been an AMAZING resource for us. But I can't see that Dr. Murphy is - but I'm not positive which "network" we'd be yet. She's been our "expert" primarily because she's local to us. Does anyone know if any of the other "big guns" are covered by UHC?

 

Thanks!

[hawks]

We have UHC, and Dr. K has recommended IVIG for our son. How do we find out if the procedure will be covered?

[EAMom]

We've been happy with UHC (PPO). It's much better than the HMO we used to have.

 

It did cover HD IVIG (twice).

 

It also has no problem with covering Azith. 250mg #60 a month (we don't always use that much) for a $5 copay. They didn't want to cover Augmentin XR 1000mg 2x daily for 1 mo., but they would have covered reg. Augmentin.