They were labeled as high risk due to drug use, they were both at the time under insurance, Blue Cross to be exact. One guy was going in for an MRI on his pec due to a tear and the insurance company requested his file and his doctor had noted his AAS use and as soon as they saw that it was grounds for immediate termination of coverage. My other friend was in a similar situation but was going in for x-rays on his leg after a car accident and his insurance company pulled his coverage after seeing AAS use noted in his files. It REALLY sucked for him because he's got a family and ended up having to go through Cobra to get coverage.
OK, thats strange to me based on what I now dealing with insurance companies for my family, with my parents business, and with employees.
Blue Cross is managed by each individual state organization, so one state may have slightly different specific coverage clauses than a different state--for example California vs Indiana vs Mass, but most things are relatively uniform across all states. On top of that there are typically slightly different state programs, which are for all practical purposes the same, but may differ on slight things. There may be something different in the state your friend is in that I'm not aware of.
I had to pull my own insurance information (my wife and I both have Blue Cross from two different employers, so there are subtle differences in our coverage also) earlier today because I was looking something up for a medical procedure I had done earlier today---an MRI, which I find kind of funny considering the topic we are talking about. Blue Cross has what appears to be in writing for the state where I live, a strong drug treatment program. I can see the insurance company refusing to pay for the MRI (on my plan and on my wifes, its 100% coverage if its preapproved by Blue Cross and done through a network provider) and saying he had to go through a drug treatment program because of the identified illegal drug use. If he refused those things they could discontinue service. An insurance company cannot just randomly drop a person it is covering without written notification of the specific reasons for termination of coverage. If they provide a vague reason, its an insured persons right to dispute it and demand a more detailed reason or a reinquirery into why they are being dropped. All too often people don't read the fine print of their health insurance policies (I used to not, but have changed over the last few years) and it ends up with the insurance company doing something that appears totally random or even harmful to the person that is covered but is clearly stated in the little print.
The COBRA use by the other friend also doesn't make sense to me. COBRA is defined for continued coverage of insurance in the event of loss of insurance coverage due to a qualified event. Qualified events include: 1) the death of the covered employee, (2) termination or a reduction in hours (which can be the result of resignation, discharge, layoff, medical leave, etc) that causes the worker to lose eligibility for coverage, (3) divorce, which normally terminates the ex-spouse's eligibility for benefits, or (4) a dependent child reaching the age at which he or she is no longer covered. If the insurance company refused to cover the person due to AAS use, then his family wouldn't have fallen under COBRA as I understand it.
http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq_consumer_cobra.html I can see if he was in a car wreck and had to take an extended leave from work where his family would have been forced to use FMLA, but not COBRA. [url]http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/statutes/whd/fmla.htm[/quote]
Just on a side note, insurance companies seriously piss me off as a doctor. When I was in private practice I worked hard to get the maximal insurance coverage for my patients, especially as I watched the veterinary insurance companies begin to pull some of the bullshit tricks that human insurance companies do and as I moved from state to state and noticed some big discrepancies from one state to the other. What you are saying about your friends may very well have happened, I'm not trying to dispute that, I'm just saying that it doesn't make sense to me based on what I know about how most health insurance companies operate. It seems like part of the story is missing.
Just remember there are ways to get around insurance company rules if you know what you are doing.
