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appalachiablue

(43,409 posts)
Fri Jan 10, 2025, 10:21 AM Jan 10

United Healthcare Calls Doctor in Surgery w Question About Patient's Coverage, Authorization: Horror Story

- 'Out of Control': Insurance Giant UnitedHealth Calls in Middle of Cancer Surgery to Question Necessity. Common Dreams, Jan. 9, 2025.

Dr. Elisabeth Potter shared "another horror story from a doctor dealing with United Healthcare's terrible authorization process."
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A month after the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson prompted many Americans to share personal horror stories of the company's coverage denials and other practices, a doctor in Austin, Texas on Wednesday shared her own experience that she said exemplified how the for-profit health system "just keeps getting worse."

In a video posted to TikTok, Dr. Elisabeth Potter said she recently received an unprecedented phone call from UnitedHealthcare about a patient—one who was already under anesthesia and having surgery.

Potter, a plastic surgeon who specializes in reconstructive surgery for breast cancer patients who have had mastectomies, said she was performing a bilateral deep inferior epigastric perforator [DIEP} surgery when UnitedHealthcare called her in the operating room.

The call was urgent, she was told, and needed to be returned right away.

"So I scrubbed out of my case and I called UnitedHealthcare, and the gentleman said he needed some information about her," said Potter. "Wanted to know her diagnosis and whether her inpatient stay should be justified." Potter found that the person calling wasn't aware that the patient whose care he was questioning had breast cancer and was in the operating room—that information was known by "a different department" at UnitedHealthcare...

https://www.commondreams.org/news/united-healthcare-surgery-coverage

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United Healthcare Calls Doctor in Surgery w Question About Patient's Coverage, Authorization: Horror Story (Original Post) appalachiablue Jan 10 OP
Will we as voters ever tire of our healthcare for profit versus actual medical care? It seems not. Lonestarblue Jan 10 #1
Absolutely,. Those voters endanger all our lives. How to counter the insanity. appalachiablue Jan 10 #2
Kick dalton99a Jan 10 #3

Lonestarblue

(12,237 posts)
1. Will we as voters ever tire of our healthcare for profit versus actual medical care? It seems not.
Fri Jan 10, 2025, 10:30 AM
Jan 10

Voters like to complain but then turn around and elect Republicans who are in bed with private equity, big pharma, and health insurance companies and refuse to allow any improvements. They’re already planning to roll back the price cap on insulin.

appalachiablue

(43,409 posts)
2. Absolutely,. Those voters endanger all our lives. How to counter the insanity.
Fri Jan 10, 2025, 10:34 AM
Jan 10

Greed and Private Equity, PE are devouring this country.

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