Sadie asked:
My insurance was effective the day I signed up, but I still have not received my card. How do I go to the doctor without it?
My insurance was effective the day I signed up, but I still have not received my card. How do I go to the doctor without it?
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
You can call your insurance company and ask them to fax something to your doctor’s office.
Or give the receptionist at the doctor’s office your insurance info and they can call and verify that you are insured.
It will be easiest if you call beforehand and get your insurance card number from your company. There should be no problem with doing this.
You don’t really need a card. Call your insurance carrier and find out your member ID, policy number, group number, and whatever relevant information you may need. What you can also do is go the the doctor and have him/her bill you later. You then submit a claim with your bill to your insurance carrier and they will reimburse the doctor.
As soon as your in the insurance system a doctors office can confirm coverage by calling the insurance company with your birth date and social security number. But your employer has to process the information first – if they have to mail the information it may take a few weeks, if they are on-line and do the processing themselves it should it only take 24 hours from the time they enter your data.
Just call the insurance company, and get a faxed copy of your info. they will give your your subscriber id and group number.
you can also check to see if your insurance company has a website, if they do you might be able to get a print out of your benefits off there.
you can call the insurance company and get proof of coverage. Or you can let the MD’s office bill you and then you can submit to the insurance yourself or have the MD’s office submit at a later date for you
The doctor’s office will need your insurance information, especially if this is your first visit. Have your insurance fax you a form to take to the doctor in lieu of your card (or send it to the doc’s office).
You can also pay for the visit yourself and later submit it to the insurance company.
Sometimes the doctor’s office can call the insurance carrier and confirm that you are covered, even if you don’t have the card yet.
If your insurance is valid, and your doctor’s office has internet access, they should be able to view your info using your social security number. (You can also do that search yourself and bring them the info.)
If that’s not possible, then call the insurance company and ask when the card will be issued, and if they can not provide you with a satisfactory answer (such as “it was mailed on 12/8/06″ or something to that effect.) then call your HR person and have them complain to the insurance company – because you guys are paying them, your opinion means more than the providers of service who are trying to get paid by them. (And if an entire company is PO’ed, that’s a big problem for the insurance!!)
If the card was mailed and you just haven’t gotten yet, explain this to the doctor’s office, and tell them you’ll bring them the card as soon as you receive it. You may have to sign a waiver stating that if you don’t bring the card within a predetermined amount of time, you have to pay the bill, but that’s okay. Don’t pay up front if you have insurance. (My office tells patients they need to bring us the insurance info within 2 weeks or they’re responsible for the bill. Nine times out of ten, we get that insurance info within 5 days.)