Cigna-ASH FIASCO

As if American Specialty Health (ASH) didn’t have it’s hands in enough, now it is the gatekeeper for Cigna too.  Unfortunately though, it didn’t get the system figured out before taking the reigns. Since it is only partly involved in claims processing (but we have to go through THEM or else), we have many claims unresolved months later because they’ve “forwarded the claim to the home plan for processing.” Their job is done (who cares that we’ve received nothing yet?)  So another decent insurance company has gone to the dark side. Poor patients.  They never understand.  They continue to come in thinking they’ve got Cadillac insurance only to find themselves needing to fill out paperwork all the time now and pay additional fees for non-covered services.  Since all ASH’s per-diem includes is the needling portion of the treatment along with heat packs, our patient’s are charged a flat additional amount for all the non-covered services done with the treatment such as: massage, gua sha, cupping, castor oil packs, etc.  With billion dollar profits, I would expect a bit more for Practitioners from an insurance company involved in (seemingly) everything.  With that being said, as long as ASH is around and so involved, we must ‘play the game’ to survive.