That Time I Was Terminated From COBRA
Last summer, when I was let go from my job, I immediately signed up for COBRA. As someone living with a chronic illness for the last 17 years, all insurance companies hate me and it isn’t even worth my time to bother asking. So I signed up with COBRA and for the last six months or so, I’ve been shelling out a couple hundred a month to keep my otherwise pretty decent health insurance policy intact. It’s kind of convoluted, but we basically decided that staying on my current health insurance policy using COBRA was the best choice until Erik and I get married and we can re-evaluate what our health insurance options will look like, whether I will join his policy or whether I will join my employer’s policy. I was set with being on COBRA for another few months.
Or so I thought.
Last Monday, on Valentine’s Day no less, I received a letter from the company that administrates COBRA for my former employer (as well as many others). The subject line of said letter?
Termination from COBRA.
My first thought was, “WHAAAAAT?” Which was then followed by, “THE HELL I AM!”
The letter explained that since I missed a premium, I was terminated from COBRA. It’s one of COBRA’s evil little rules. If you miss a month of COBRA payments, you are automatically booted out of COBRA and there is no way to get back in! Obviously, if I needed to, I could join my employer’s health insurance policy but I prefer not to at this point. I’m five months from joining Erik’s insurance policy. I don’t want to join a new policy and then switch again.
After quickly telling Erik what the letter said (he noticed my gaping mouth), I hopped on the phone with COBRA Administrator’s customer service.
“Hello, this is Customer Service Rep at COBRA Administrator.”
“Hi, I received a letter today saying that I was terminated from COBRA for failure to pay premiums on time, except I didn’t, so I need this fixed,” I explained. I explained to the woman that I most certainly paid my COBRA premium for the last month and that I could even prove it because my bank showed that the money was deducted from my account.
“Just a moment…” After an eternity of listening to ’80s musak (the same song – over and over again), the COBRA Administrator rep came back on the phone. “Yes, we did receive your January payment but that was applied to your December balance, and so we were still owed January.”
Now I was even more confused. I explained that wasn’t possible because I did pay December’s premium – to the old COBRA Administrator that used to run the account for my former employer. In December I found out that Old COBRA Administrator was no long our administrator, and it took a couple of weeks to get a hold of the new company. However, because premiums for the month are due no later than the last day of the month, I knew that with the grace period I had enough time to straighten things out. So, the December payment went, as far as I knew, to the Old COBRA Administrators, and the January payment was mailed on time to the New COBRA Administrators. I told her that whatever miscommunication happened was certainly not my fault!
“Just a moment…” I was put back on hold, with that same stupid ’80s musak song playing.
A few minutes later, the woman returned, “Yes, apparently your account was never credited with the payment, although we do have record of receiving the payment.”
“So, I don’t owe money for December?” I clarified.
“No, ma’am, that was handled by your former employer,” the COBRA Administrator rep replied. She explained that somehow I was sending in my payment with the payment slip and with a check labeled with my personal account number, and yet the money wasn’t being posted to my account. That’s why it looked like I had defaulted on my COBRA premiums.
The woman gave me a reference number and instructions to call back in a few days to check on the appeal of my termination. When I called back, I was told that the money had been “posted to my account” and that I had been “reinstated” into COBRA. Damn right!
How does something like this happen? How is it possible for a company to knowingly take a check, deposit it and not credit an account? Did they think it was just some kind of fairy money or something? Like “Oh, look! Two hundred and thirty six dollars for no apparent reason! Somebody must love us!”
It’s not like this was some sketchy check. It has my name and address on it! How do you not just look up the person in the system? If I received a check and didn’t know where the money was supposed to go, I would ask! I wonder if this has happened to other people. Have other people been knocked out of COBRA because their COBRA administrator can’t do their effing job? It makes me wonder…
Honestly, the whole thing just boggles the mind.
Then I googled images of COBRA and all I got were pictures of a deadly, venomous snake. And it all made sense…
Wow. The exact same thing happened to me when I was on COBRA. They finally fixed it but kept treating me as if I had paid late. It was weird. Although my payments were almost $1000 more than yours so they wanted some huge amount of money from me (that they already had).
Wow! I’m so glad they got it fixed. COBRA is evil. And that changing companies thing is crazy. My parents had something similar happen with a house payment once. They sent in a payment and then the company was sold off and the new company tried to say they didn’t pay their payment. And how are you lucky enough to get COBRA that cheaply?? When I lost my job it was going to be almost $600. Ek!
Your COBRA amount is based on the price of health insurance regularly, so it depends on your provider and your plan that you’re subsribing to. It’ll be different for everyone. Mine does not include dental or vision, though. This is strictly medical, for doctors appointments and prescriptions. I can skip one dental exam (I’ve gone as long as 3 years!) and I’ll be on a new plan by the time I need my eyes examined again.
Your medical insurance doesn’t pay for your eye exams? Mine always cover it because I’m diabetic.
Oh yes, well, they cover that exam, but I wouldn’t get coverage for the contact lenses that I buy once a year when I go in for my exam. Because the exam tells me if I need a new contact lenses prescription. I wasn’t terribly clear with that one!
Yah, I was on COBRA for exactly one month between jobs and it was a horrible experience. First, I got two invoices for two different amounts (it was a very small difference, like $4). I paid the first invoice (the less expensive one). Then I got the second invoice and since I didn’t know what it meant and couldn’t figure out why they didn’t seem to know what my premium was, I assumed that they’d contact me once they received my payment and let me know if they needed anything.
Nope. I went to get prescriptions filled and the claim was denied and I couldn’t get my prescription. I called my inaurance compaby who told me I needed to call COBRA. Turns out they thought I didn’t pay. YES, they received my $360 but still needed the last FOUR BUCKS!?! Which is why they canceled my insurance. I couldn’t figure out why they couldn’t have informed me of this considering they had tons of my money without any intention of giving me insurance.
Whatever. I gave them their $4 and they said it would be a few days to process but they’d give me temporary authorization to have my prescription filled.
Then I went to a doctors appointment . . . And the same thing happened, Over and over for the entire month since I needed several refills and had a few doctors appointments. (Bad timing or what?) With every prescription refill and every appointment I was denied. My coverage STILL had not been reinstated!! My insurance said it was COBRA’s fault and COBRA said they’d done their part and my insuarance was dragging their feet.
I don’t even want to think of the hours I was on the phone with both companies over and over again, having to re-explain the story and being told I would once again get temporary authorization only to get denied AGAIN the next time a claim was made. By the end of that ONE month I was SO frustrated and infuriated and had (embarassingly) cried on the phone with numerous Blue Cross and COBRA employees. I felt so helpless that they had almost $400 of my money and couldn’t get their act togwether enough to give me service! UGH!
In short, you’re not alone; COBRA blows!
What a miserable experience! I’m thankful that my experience was less traumatic, but still. This kind of thing should NOT happen!
There is a special place in hell for insurance people that attempt to get people cancelled. You cannot tell me that these were just oversights. They were hoping these folks would just give up and they would be off the hook for their coverage.
This would have sent my normally fine blood pressure through the roof. This is the kind of thing that makes the American healthcare system look “third world.”
Thank you for sharing with us, so we know we are not alone when we fight out insurance company.
Technically this isn’t the insurance company, it’s the COBRA administrator. These companies manage COBRA payments from former employees to health insurance companies. They are the “middle men” which is just as bad.