What is the waiting period on a health insurance policy?

September 26th, 2009 | by health |
goducks! asked:


I was in a car accident about 1 1/2 months after I got my new health insurance coverage. I didn’t have personal injury protection on my auto insurance policy so i’m billing my health insurance for the costs.

Anyways they just sent me a letter saying that the services occurred within the waiting period of the policy therefore this claim is pending for receipt of physicians report.

What does all this mean? Can they deny the coverage?

AUBREY

Health - Bookmark and Share Yuor Favorits... These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • StumbleUpon
  • Ask
  • Facebook
  • Google Bookmarks
  • LinkedIn
  • Live-MSN
  • MySpace
  • Netscape
  • Squidoo
  • Technorati
  • TwitThis
  • YahooMyWeb
  1. 10 Responses to “What is the waiting period on a health insurance policy?”

  2. By rosostrov.ru on Sep 26, 2009 | Reply

    I don’t think he’ll make any money in a mutual fund if he only has a few months to trade. Have him learn about earnings and trade around earnings reports, I think he’ll either hit or miss but thats a fun way to live “Go big or go home.”

  3. By prizebig.ru on Sep 26, 2009 | Reply

    Will money be taken from my taxes because I have a student loan?

  4. By Soozie Q on Sep 28, 2009 | Reply

    DEMARCUS

    They can’t deny your claim due to a “waiting period”. Either you have insurance or you don’t. It would’t matter if this accident happened on the first day your health insurance was in force. They like to use stall tactics, but don’t worry. They are waiting to get all of the information from your doctor. And if the accident wasn’t your fault, they will want to go after the other person’s insurance. If they keep denying your claim, send all of your information (medical records and the insurance denial letters) to your state’s board of insurance. They will help you get your claim paid. Good luck.

    Edit: What the others have said about pre-existing condition is true, but I didn’t even bother to talk about it because you were in an auto accident so this obviously isn’t pre-existing. That is, unless you had an accident due to a condition you had prior to getting this health insurance such as passing out due to a low blood sugar if you were a diabetic. You didn’t mention anything about that so I assume you didn’t have an accident due to a health problem. Therefore, no pre-existing condition, therefore, no waiting period.

  5. By mbrcatz17 on Sep 28, 2009 | Reply

    CARLOS

    For a private policy, they can flat out decline to pay any pre-existing conditions – they don’t need to pick them up after ANY time period.

    For a group policy, it’s usually 12 to 18 months.

    What this means is, they’re going to investigate carefully, to make sure this isn’t a pre-existing condition. If it’s pre-existing, they will deny it.

  6. By yourbig.ru on Sep 28, 2009 | Reply

    Paypal takes a lot of your money. Quikbooks is what I decided on. I am able to integrate it with the free version online. Now that is just a merchant account. I use godaddy.com to set up my shopping cart feature and it is compatible with the Quikbooks merchant account. The monthly fees are low and the percentage for each transaction that Quikbooks takes is small…well worth it.

  7. By Insuranceman on Sep 28, 2009 | Reply

    BENJAMIN

    Companies normally have a 60 day “underwriting period” to see if they even want to accept your application.

    Since yours was a NEW application and still within this period, they are probably still waiting on reports from your doctors to see if you had any pre-existing conditions that might have caused the accident.

    If not…you shouldn’t have a problem – it just takes a little waiting time.

    Good luck and I hope this helps!

  8. By ownbig.ru on Sep 30, 2009 | Reply

    absolutely fabulous. You definitely Zeigerwhatsernamed me! Will definitely check out your site.

  9. By Ask A Doctor on Sep 30, 2009 | Reply

    They can not deny you of the claim money. Sooner or later they will have to pay you, so don’t worry.

  10. By InsurancePickle.com on Sep 30, 2009 | Reply

    DONNELL

    There is no waiting period for a policy — except for sometimes maternity. But, if you just get insurance and make a claim 6 weeks into it you’d have to understand that they’re going to be a little suspicious.

    Obviously in your case a car accident has nothing to do with pre-exisitng conditions, but the insurance company doesn’t know the particulars of the claims. They only know that you’re having a medical issue.

    That’s why they want to know. They will also send you a form to see if someone else is reponsible for the claim (i.e. due to an accident, worker’s comp, law suit, etc..). So, you can expect that as well and know that is standard operating procedure as well.

    In short, I wouldn’t worry about it at this point.

    Good luck,

    Jeff

  11. By Diana on Oct 1, 2009 | Reply

    ARLIE

    Waiting period, pre-existing condition… very similar clauses. My suggestion to you is to get on the phone, or go to the offices of the physician’s you saw. Get those statements sent out to your insurance company ASAP! Most insurance companies only have 90 days to file claims, after that … they deny them simply because the claim is old. So you will want to know how many days you have left to get these claims completed and processed.

    Document everything!!!! The person you spoke with, their job title, the date and time you spoke with each person, and the contents of the discussion. Claims get lost all the time…. sometimes it’s human error, other times its a dishonest human.

    And finally… they can deny the claim, even if it was filed on it, because it may not meet their criteria OR they decided that the event wasn’t based on medical necessity.

Sorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.