In a sea of difficult-to-deal-with insurance providers, United Healthcare stands out as a particularly awful provider. If I could snap my fingers and magically

In a sea of difficult-to-deal-with insurance providers, United Healthcare stands out as a particularly awful provider. If I could snap my fingers and magically disappear any single insurance provider, it'd be United. For my wife's specialty (ophthalmology), they're they only insurer in our region that requires a referral from a primary care provider for a visit. So, if you have blue-cross and have trouble with your vision, you can just go see an ophthalmologist. If you have United, you need to call your primary care provider, explain your problem over the phone or (in some cases) go in for a visit, and get them to refer you to an ophthalmologist. It's a hassle for us, but much much more of a hassle for primary care providers who are wasting tons of time on referrals and paperwork an in effort to save United money. It's a good part of the reason that primary care providers have to have the most support-staff per physician[1], despite having relatively lower reimbursement rates. [1] http://www.mgma.com/Libraries/Assets/Key-Findings-CostSurvey-FINAL.pdf http://www.mgma.com/Libraries/Assets/Key-Findings-CostSurvey...