Sign up for your FREE personalized newsletter featuring insights, trends, and news for America's aging Baby Boomers

Newsletter
New

Anthem Bcbs Drops Plans For Insane Anesthesia Coverage Time Limits

Card image cap

Mere days after United Healthcare’s CEO Brain Thompson was shot by a man seemingly motivated by the company and American healthcare industry’s sociopathic treatment of its customers, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, BCBS, reversed its decision to limit reimbursements for anesthesia used during medical procedures in the states of Connecticut, New York, and Missouri.

The policy change would’ve taken effect in February 2025. Gee, I wonder if one of those new stories affected the other? Hmm.

BCBS’s decision to limit reimbursement for the thing that keeps you knocked out as people slice into your organs was met with universal hatred. If you found anyone online cheering this decision, they were probably either a healthcare executive’s burner account or a bot that thought it was replying to an OnlyFans model.

It wasn’t just disliked by anyone who commented on the decision online, it seemed to be universally loathed. It represented the apex of the healthcare industry’s greed and disregard for the human life it claims to serve.

BCBS says they are backtracking on that policy change after seeing the enormous backlash from people online. There’s probably a level of truth to that. But it’s also hysterical that the company announced the reversal of this horrific, monstrous decision mere hours after the CEO of a rival private health insurance company was killed for demonstrating an active disdain for its customer base.

Critics of the policy argued that since the administration of anesthesia is determined by the surgeon and the length of the surgery, not the anesthesiologist, limiting reimbursement based on time could disrupt patient care by not accounting for the varying lengths of surgeries.

People would wake up from their surgery to discover that their insurance only covered the first hour of a three-hour procedure, for instance, and would be charged out the ass for something that was previously covered with seemingly no issue.

This isn’t the first time Blue Cross Blue Shield has tried some bullshit like this. Almost exactly a year ago, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts tried to restrict anesthesia during colonoscopies. The company eventually reversed its decision after doctors rebelled and pushed back against it.

The post Anthem BCBS Drops Plans for Insane Anesthesia Coverage Time Limits appeared first on VICE.


Recent