Can someone explain COBRA insurance to me

[love2disney]

DH just left one company and joined another on the 18th of May. The new company benefits kick in after 30 days. FOr these 30 days we applied for COBRA. The insurance company DH had all these years sent us the form on 22nd and I faxed it on 23rd. When I called they told me it will take 2-3 weeks to come into effect. They have not yet asked me to pay the 1300$ I know it will cost me to cover the family for 30 days.

I took DS2 to the doctor on 19th may and I had told the receptionist I dont know my insurance status. She told me to see the doctor and then the billing office will bill me. The bill came to 85$.

So what do I do. Tell them to resubmit it to the company adn the insurance will pay when the instate my COBRa or do I pay it. My DS7 also needs SIngulair and usually our copay was just 20$ for the month but the whole money is $168. DOes COBRA pay this? Should I wait till day approve it. I have about 9 left.

Can anyone tell me how COBRA works or is this wait normal?

 

[Cheshire Figment]

Basically with COBRA you have a continuation of your previous employer's insurance policy. There is actually no break in coverage. However, instead of your paying the normal employee share which you are used to paying, you are paying both the employee and employer shares, plus a 2% surcharge to cover administrative fees.

I would suggest you call the insurance company ask ask them the best way to handle this, as they are the ones who will pay the claims.

 

[Nancy]

COBRA is a pain mainly because it is not a quick thing to get everything in place...and some COBRA administrators are slower than others.


You actually got your paperwork pretty quick. What will happen now is COBRA will process all your paper work and then send you a bill, once you pay they in turn will send a file feed over to the insurance company telling them you are on COBRA and the paid through date.

Your doctor can actually file a claim even though right now they don't have the COBRA update. Insurance will deny for no coverage, but once all the COBRA stuff goes through they can just sent the claim back through the processing system to be reconsidered.

So you could be already covered under the new insurance before old insurance actually has all the updates in place. It's just not a quick thing for some reason.

 

[Debbie7452]

Ok, I have used Cobra before but in your case, since you know benefits are coming wouldn't it make more sense to just pay those few bills out of pocket? Since you are getting employee group coverage soon, a lapse shouldn't be a problem, right?

I had to wait 30 days once and the new HR person advised me that I could apply for Cobra if and when anything MAJOR occurred for me during that time. Luckily, there was no need. Maybe I'm missing something?

 

[golfgal]

COBRA is set up exactly for situations like your's. In your case I would pay the Dr bill out of pocket if it is less then the COBRA payment for that month. You don't TECHNICALLY have to pay the COBRA premiums for over 60 days. If you don't use the insurance, you don't pay for it==if you go over that time frame you DO need to pay the premiums. It is set up that way on purpose. I would contact the dr's office and make arrangements to pay that visit out of pocket and ask them NOT to file a claim.

When you leave a job the company has 14 days to get you the paperwork, you then have 63 days to get the paperwork in and another 60 days to make the payment, IF you use the coverage. In your case since you only had 30 days, you didn't even really need to send in the paperwork.