9 ms·

Insurance companies fill their networks with ‘ghost’ therapists

100 points by apwheele 3y ago

neonate 3y ago
http://web.archive.org/web/20231004220011/https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/mental-health/how-insurance-companies-fill-their-networks-with-ghost-therapists/ http://web.archive.org/web/20231004220011/https://www.seattl... https://archive.ph/Nl7gj https://archive.ph/Nl7gj
PaulHoule 3y ago
I wouldn't necessary blame the insurance. My primary care doc gave me 10 referrals to psychiatric nurse practitioners but zero were taking new patients. I asked someone who'd written review articles on my condition to do the same and he said he would but I think he did some looking and came up short and ghosted me.
- notacoward 3y ago
  Yes. All the time. First you have to find a therapist that actually exists. Then you need to find one who returns a simple email or phone call. Then one who is willing to take you on as a client, and finally one who actually has the tools to help. And each step is hell for someone with any of several conditions that might have been why they were seeking a therapist in the first place. It's no wonder we have a crisis - if that's even the word for something that has been going on so long.
  - RajT88 3y ago
    As others have pointed out, this is the experience with other healthcare providers. Insurers are incentivized for you to not seek out healthcare, but not die. Or seek care, but pay out of pocket. They need those premiums. I had bad insurance once (Unicare), and an office lady I worked with who used to work there shared many horrifying stories of things like employees putting claims in plastic bags and hiding them above the ceiling tiles.
    - notacoward 3y ago
      > this is the experience with other healthcare providers I'd say there is still a difference in how the ghosting is likely to affect the person seeking care. Somebody seeking help with plantar fasciitis or urinary troubles might not appreciate being ghosted, but it could be a major roadblock to someone with executive dysfunction, or devastating to someone with social anxiety. There's probably also a bit of a difference in terms of finding someone actually good. Do you know whether you might be better served by a different dermatologist? Your sense of that is probably much less strong than that of someone currently seeing a therapist with the wrong approach for them. I agree that this does happen in all medical specialties and that it's bad everywhere, but it's even worse for therapists to do it.
- chimeracoder 3y ago
  > I wouldn't necessary blame the insurance. Why not? They're the ones who are gatekeeping the product (their network) at the same time as they're selling access to their network (this is considered one of the "features" on which insurance companies compete and sell their product). Not to mention that, as mentioned in the article, insurers are legally required to maintain a sufficiently large network to enable their patients to receive care in a timely manner. If insurance companies want to restrict patients and limit them to seeking care from providers within a preapproved, artificially limited network, then it's totally fair to criticize them for not ensuring that their network is sufficiently large and accessible to be practically usable by patients.
  - munk-a 3y ago
    Precisely - this is a problem that insurers themselves have created... they deserve no pity for it.
    - PaulHoule 3y ago
      Even if the insurance had everybody in the network, psychiatric help is still scarce in 2023. Some people still think it is like One Flew out of the Cuckoo's Nest but really you can be suicidal and still spend 48 hours in the emergency room before getting to spend another 96 hours in the psych ward, get a depot injection of Haloperidol decanoate and get discharged. Never mind trying to see a talk therapist.
  - CogitoCogito 3y ago
    The US should just stop playing these games. Networks should be banned. Their purpose is to restrict choice not to increase it. It doesn't serve a rational economic purpose (other than enriching a parasitic minority).
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Insurance is collecting premiums for care that can’t be provided. I blame them.
  - FireBeyond 3y ago
    This is an extremely good point. And all too often it "can't" be provided because the insurance provider chooses not to provide it ("that provider is out-of-network, sorry").
- hellotheretoday 3y ago
  Speaking from the clinician side insurance cos often make joining the network difficult and slow. It can take months. They very rarely reach out to get new providers to joint their networks when their subscribers are struggling to find clinicians. I’m pretty sure they just don’t tbh but I don’t know that definitively Additionally certain insurers may pay terribly. Most insurers in my area pay about the same but one pays about 65% less than the average. It works out to less than minimum wage after I pay my overhead. No thanks, not joining that network.
didgeoridoo 3y ago
My wife is a clinical psychologist who used to take insurance. She got tired of not being paid for months for patients she saw. Legally they have 90 days to pay you, but in practice it’s closer to 4-5 months. Every January they claim to have “computer problems related to the new year” and simply lose huge numbers of claims, requiring you to resubmit — oh that claim is more than 90 days old even though it was their system that “lost” it? Sorry, can’t submit! Guess you just worked for free! She takes cash now. It was an abusive system and I’m not surprised it’s falling apart.
- cogman10 3y ago
  Up and down the board this is the game insurance companies are playing. For example, I had need for a medical device. My doctors office submitted the claim for that device with documentation of it's necessity 5 times over 6 months before it was finally approved. The prior 4 times it was "You didn't include all the required information" even though each submission was identical. There's simply far too little oversight on insurance agencies. They are perversely incentivized to give the worst outcomes for everyone which being to command high premiums because of the relatively low amount of competition or threat of "switching" (After all, you are using your employer's insurance. You didn't get to pick it, HR did. And they picked it based on who's cheapest. How did they become the cheapest? A race to the bottom in terms of service). All of this burdens the whole system with cost and delay. I'm all for universal healthcare, but if we can't get that can we at least get stronger regulations and punitive measure against insurance companies for playing these games? It's crazy that everyone has stories, regardless of agency, of illegitimate claim denials. And to be clear, they do this because it saves them money and costs them nothing. By denying by default, a certain percentage of the population and doctors offices will ultimately just go away because of the headache it takes to convince the agency to provide the product you pay for.
  - Loughla 3y ago
    It's astounding that the care plan created by myself and my team of doctors is regularly denied by a statistician at Blue Cross Blue Shield. This means my care is ultimately in the hands of someone with zero medical training. Astounding.
jwie 3y ago
It’s unlikely this is as interesting as the headline suggests. Maintaining a list of professionals is challenging. There are very simple input problems with this kind of data. The professional, in this case a therapist, but it really doesn’t matter what they do, just isn’t going to keep their portal updated on the insurance network aggregator. The insurance companies can’t make the anyone update their listing, and the professionals don’t have incentives. They’re full up on work so there’s no real need for them to do anything to get clients. This is a bog-standard supply and demand problem.
- edgyquant 3y ago
  It’s that interesting and this is a laughable attempt at apologism.
thinkerswell 3y ago
The sooner we eliminate the insurance middlemen the better. Thankfully a bunch of cash-only networks are spreading.
- munk-a 3y ago
  Eliminating insurance would certainly help at this point - UHC alone is a wonderful proof of just how horrible that road is... but fee-for-service care directly paid for by customers needs to go. A reasonable level of healthcare is important and should be accessible to everyone.
  - wernercd 3y ago
    Something that requires the service of others isn't a "right". you have a right to be free. Right to self defense. Right to free speech. You don't have a right to the services of others.
    - munk-a 3y ago
      I would just briefly point out that all three rights you've listed require the assistance and consent of those around you.
      - saulpw 3y ago
        I don't think the parent is correct in dismissing healthcare as a right, but to be fair, the rights they listed are 'passive' rights. They only require the state to not get in your way. e.g. you don't have a right to arms, you have a right to bear arms. If you can't get the weapons themselves there's absolutely no requirement for the government to give you some.
    - orange-mentor 3y ago
      Who said anything about rights? We just want health care to be free at the site of service and funded by taxes. Just like fire fighters, police, etc. Every other western country does it that way, and none of them are clamoring to build a system like the USA currently has.
crazygringo 3y ago
In my experience, this isn't anything special about therapists. Going through the listings for any kind of doctor in your health plan is a nightmare. When I needed to see a primary care physician, it took two hours of calling 10+ listed offices to find one that was actually a primary care physician, was still practicing in the geographic area, was accepting new patients, and still accepted my health insurance (apparently dropping plans is common?). And the earliest they could see me was in 6 weeks. It was the exact same type of experience when I needed to see a particular type of specialist, except the earliest appointment I could find was in 3 months. The insurance companies just don't update their lists for any type of doctor, as far as I can tell. Whether this is due to sheer incompetence or deliberate deception or some combination of the two, I couldn't tell you.
- edgyquant 3y ago
  Why in the world is the whole network thing even legal? It’s seems like a way to guarantee certain doctors and insurance companies a steady stream of cash flow without having to compete with one another. It is a hilariously corrupt system, but that’s par for the course with the medical industry. One of the only professions where you can charge people to have provided no solutions to their problems. Image a mechanic who tells you your misfiring engine and squeaky breaks are nothing and then charges you a few grand for the pleasure of them being obviously wrong.
  - Clamchop 3y ago
    Aside from such a scheme dominating a particular region and being a potential playground for other anticompetitive practices, nothing about the idea in general strikes me as inherently anticompetitive. Insurance cos can still compete on the merits of their networks and, in theory but sadly I think not in practice, these schemes could work in favor of the patients if the insurance company uses their network to balance cost with service quality. A very dominant one could effectively rule a region as a cartel, though.
  - RajT88 3y ago
    > Why in the world is the whole network thing even legal? Lobbyists
orange-mentor 3y ago
How long will we Americans submit to these rent-seeking vampire insurance companies? Single-payer now, please.
- wernercd 3y ago
  So the answer to "rent seeking vampire insurance companies" is a rent seeking vampire government agency? No thank you. The answer to government created problems isn't a government created department. All you have to do is look at all of history to see the results of increased government power. Look at the lies of the unaffordable care act. look at the fact that things the government promises as "free" become unaffordable and worse.
  - jackblemming 3y ago
    So what’s your solution then?
    - wernercd 3y ago
      Free market options with reasonable government regulations. What we had when this country had great healthcare options. You know... the stuff that was replaced with "Keep your Doctor", "keep your plan", "save $2500 a year" and other lies used to pass the unaffordable care act (and similar). There's a reason "Free Healthcare" can only pass with lies - and it's because government options/UHC/etc are lies for those who don't look at... well... history.
      - FireBeyond 3y ago
        The ACA was a travesty. But let's not forget that it was the only thing that really had any hope of passing, thanks to one political party. Funnily enough, speaking of lies and kool-aid, when you talk of ObamaCare to supporters of that political party, they are vehemently opposed. "What if, instead of ObamaCare, there was, say, an Affordable Care Act that did X, Y and Z?" (where X, Y and Z were actual features of the ACA) "Oh, that would be much better! I'd love that!"
ravenstine 3y ago
Why do I get the impression that the economy in 2023 is based on primarily fake things? So many things are either illusions, legal grifts, and outright ripoffs. This isn't anything new per se, but I think we may have gone beyond a critical threshold. Will the chickens come home to roost, or have things become so simulated that too many people believe ambiguously in the system for it to fail?
- nerdponx 3y ago
  It won't fall over (there are still lots of real things out there), but it's pretty much just basic economics. If you can make a fake thing instead of a real thing for significantly less cost, but could sell it for a similar price, why would you make the real thing?
  - paulryanrogers 3y ago
    To stay out of jail. Executives need to go to jail. Anything less won't fix this because the fish is rotting from the head.
- orange-mentor 3y ago
  History teaches us things can change fast. Think USSR in 1984. At some point things are going to give. We have the technical means to provide a decent life for everyone. And I mean everyone, including illegal immigrants sneaking across the border. And we could do all that while everyone struggles less. So yea. Most jobs are fake and stupid and don't need to be done. The ones that need doing could be given more support, distributed more evenly. This was a mainstream economic viewpoint less than a century ago. What happened?
  - kube-system 3y ago
    It is a good thing that we have an economy where there are jobs for people to do things that 'don't need to be done'. This is the only way that a highly specialized capitalist society can provide income and purpose for everyone, and drive further innovation. People need income and jobs, even as we add more automation. As long as our society produces enough basic needs to actually support people, it is better that people are doing 'unnecessary' jobs rather than being unemployed as the result of automation. Everyone is worried that automation is going to steal people's jobs, and jobs won't exist anymore, but that has already been happening in full swing for 100+ years. 'Useless' jobs are and will continue to be the solution to that problem. (And I am using 'useless' rather tongue-in-cheek. The jobs do have real functional value, even if they're in higher parts of Maslow's hierarchy)
ogn3rd 3y ago
Even better, they refuse to remove therapists who no longer take insurance even after multiple attempts and letters requesting removal. It's a fun scam.
ada1981 3y ago
Many of the problems here might be a good use of simple AI to call / verify and keep on top of all these providers…
- UtopiaPunk 3y ago
  Oh heavens no
  - sfink 3y ago
    It's ok, the AIs will just end up talking to the doctors' AIs, who will tell them GFY. /s?
more_corn 3y ago
This is true of every provider list of every insurance company I’ve ever used. It’s laughable bad. “That doctor hasn’t been at this office in ten years” “Not taking new patients”
UtopiaPunk 3y ago
I hate the health insurance system in the USA so much. It's just horrendously bad. I had a kid enter this world at right about the same time I changed jobs. That resulted in changing health insurance. On paper, this should have been a little expensive but fine because I paid extra money for Cobra to extend my coverage until the new plan kicked in. But it was such a mess. I was making phonecalls and sending emails and logging in to weird web portals with two different insurance companies, Cobra (which was managed by some mysterious other entity??), two different HR departments, and the finance people at the hospital for months trying to deal with this stuff. The hospital we were at was in-network for both insurance companies, but no one was communicating with each other (and apparently one doctor involved was not in-network, so there were extra charges, which is such bullshit). Why is my employer involved with my healthcare costs anyway? It's genuinely a Kafka-esque nightmare. Anyway, any presidential or congressional candidate that opposes universal healthcare doesn't get my vote, ever. Sorry Biden, but you don't automatically get my vote just because I disagree with the republican platform.

100 points by apwheele 3y ago

http://web.archive.org/web/20231004220011/https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/mental-health/how-insurance-companies-fill-their-networks-with-ghost-therapists/ http://web.archive.org/web/20231004220011/https://www.seattl... https://archive.ph/Nl7gj https://archive.ph/Nl7gj

PaulHoule 3y ago

I wouldn't necessary blame the insurance. My primary care doc gave me 10 referrals to psychiatric nurse practitioners but zero were taking new patients. I asked someone who'd written review articles on my condition to do the same and he said he would but I think he did some looking and came up short and ghosted me.

notacoward 3y ago
Yes. All the time. First you have to find a therapist that actually exists. Then you need to find one who returns a simple email or phone call. Then one who is willing to take you on as a client, and finally one who actually has the tools to help. And each step is hell for someone with any of several conditions that might have been why they were seeking a therapist in the first place. It's no wonder we have a crisis - if that's even the word for something that has been going on so long.
- RajT88 3y ago
  As others have pointed out, this is the experience with other healthcare providers. Insurers are incentivized for you to not seek out healthcare, but not die. Or seek care, but pay out of pocket. They need those premiums. I had bad insurance once (Unicare), and an office lady I worked with who used to work there shared many horrifying stories of things like employees putting claims in plastic bags and hiding them above the ceiling tiles.
  - notacoward 3y ago
    > this is the experience with other healthcare providers I'd say there is still a difference in how the ghosting is likely to affect the person seeking care. Somebody seeking help with plantar fasciitis or urinary troubles might not appreciate being ghosted, but it could be a major roadblock to someone with executive dysfunction, or devastating to someone with social anxiety. There's probably also a bit of a difference in terms of finding someone actually good. Do you know whether you might be better served by a different dermatologist? Your sense of that is probably much less strong than that of someone currently seeing a therapist with the wrong approach for them. I agree that this does happen in all medical specialties and that it's bad everywhere, but it's even worse for therapists to do it.
chimeracoder 3y ago
> I wouldn't necessary blame the insurance. Why not? They're the ones who are gatekeeping the product (their network) at the same time as they're selling access to their network (this is considered one of the "features" on which insurance companies compete and sell their product). Not to mention that, as mentioned in the article, insurers are legally required to maintain a sufficiently large network to enable their patients to receive care in a timely manner. If insurance companies want to restrict patients and limit them to seeking care from providers within a preapproved, artificially limited network, then it's totally fair to criticize them for not ensuring that their network is sufficiently large and accessible to be practically usable by patients.
- munk-a 3y ago
  Precisely - this is a problem that insurers themselves have created... they deserve no pity for it.
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    Even if the insurance had everybody in the network, psychiatric help is still scarce in 2023. Some people still think it is like One Flew out of the Cuckoo's Nest but really you can be suicidal and still spend 48 hours in the emergency room before getting to spend another 96 hours in the psych ward, get a depot injection of Haloperidol decanoate and get discharged. Never mind trying to see a talk therapist.
- CogitoCogito 3y ago
  The US should just stop playing these games. Networks should be banned. Their purpose is to restrict choice not to increase it. It doesn't serve a rational economic purpose (other than enriching a parasitic minority).
toomuchtodo 3y ago
Insurance is collecting premiums for care that can’t be provided. I blame them.
- FireBeyond 3y ago
  This is an extremely good point. And all too often it "can't" be provided because the insurance provider chooses not to provide it ("that provider is out-of-network, sorry").
hellotheretoday 3y ago
Speaking from the clinician side insurance cos often make joining the network difficult and slow. It can take months. They very rarely reach out to get new providers to joint their networks when their subscribers are struggling to find clinicians. I’m pretty sure they just don’t tbh but I don’t know that definitively Additionally certain insurers may pay terribly. Most insurers in my area pay about the same but one pays about 65% less than the average. It works out to less than minimum wage after I pay my overhead. No thanks, not joining that network.

didgeoridoo 3y ago

My wife is a clinical psychologist who used to take insurance. She got tired of not being paid for months for patients she saw. Legally they have 90 days to pay you, but in practice it’s closer to 4-5 months. Every January they claim to have “computer problems related to the new year” and simply lose huge numbers of claims, requiring you to resubmit — oh that claim is more than 90 days old even though it was their system that “lost” it? Sorry, can’t submit! Guess you just worked for free! She takes cash now. It was an abusive system and I’m not surprised it’s falling apart.

cogman10 3y ago
Up and down the board this is the game insurance companies are playing. For example, I had need for a medical device. My doctors office submitted the claim for that device with documentation of it's necessity 5 times over 6 months before it was finally approved. The prior 4 times it was "You didn't include all the required information" even though each submission was identical. There's simply far too little oversight on insurance agencies. They are perversely incentivized to give the worst outcomes for everyone which being to command high premiums because of the relatively low amount of competition or threat of "switching" (After all, you are using your employer's insurance. You didn't get to pick it, HR did. And they picked it based on who's cheapest. How did they become the cheapest? A race to the bottom in terms of service). All of this burdens the whole system with cost and delay. I'm all for universal healthcare, but if we can't get that can we at least get stronger regulations and punitive measure against insurance companies for playing these games? It's crazy that everyone has stories, regardless of agency, of illegitimate claim denials. And to be clear, they do this because it saves them money and costs them nothing. By denying by default, a certain percentage of the population and doctors offices will ultimately just go away because of the headache it takes to convince the agency to provide the product you pay for.
- Loughla 3y ago
  It's astounding that the care plan created by myself and my team of doctors is regularly denied by a statistician at Blue Cross Blue Shield. This means my care is ultimately in the hands of someone with zero medical training. Astounding.

jwie 3y ago

It’s unlikely this is as interesting as the headline suggests. Maintaining a list of professionals is challenging. There are very simple input problems with this kind of data. The professional, in this case a therapist, but it really doesn’t matter what they do, just isn’t going to keep their portal updated on the insurance network aggregator. The insurance companies can’t make the anyone update their listing, and the professionals don’t have incentives. They’re full up on work so there’s no real need for them to do anything to get clients. This is a bog-standard supply and demand problem.

edgyquant 3y ago
It’s that interesting and this is a laughable attempt at apologism.

thinkerswell 3y ago

The sooner we eliminate the insurance middlemen the better. Thankfully a bunch of cash-only networks are spreading.

munk-a 3y ago
Eliminating insurance would certainly help at this point - UHC alone is a wonderful proof of just how horrible that road is... but fee-for-service care directly paid for by customers needs to go. A reasonable level of healthcare is important and should be accessible to everyone.
- wernercd 3y ago
  Something that requires the service of others isn't a "right". you have a right to be free. Right to self defense. Right to free speech. You don't have a right to the services of others.
  - munk-a 3y ago
    I would just briefly point out that all three rights you've listed require the assistance and consent of those around you.
    - saulpw 3y ago
      I don't think the parent is correct in dismissing healthcare as a right, but to be fair, the rights they listed are 'passive' rights. They only require the state to not get in your way. e.g. you don't have a right to arms, you have a right to bear arms. If you can't get the weapons themselves there's absolutely no requirement for the government to give you some.
  - orange-mentor 3y ago
    Who said anything about rights? We just want health care to be free at the site of service and funded by taxes. Just like fire fighters, police, etc. Every other western country does it that way, and none of them are clamoring to build a system like the USA currently has.

crazygringo 3y ago

In my experience, this isn't anything special about therapists. Going through the listings for any kind of doctor in your health plan is a nightmare. When I needed to see a primary care physician, it took two hours of calling 10+ listed offices to find one that was actually a primary care physician, was still practicing in the geographic area, was accepting new patients, and still accepted my health insurance (apparently dropping plans is common?). And the earliest they could see me was in 6 weeks. It was the exact same type of experience when I needed to see a particular type of specialist, except the earliest appointment I could find was in 3 months. The insurance companies just don't update their lists for any type of doctor, as far as I can tell. Whether this is due to sheer incompetence or deliberate deception or some combination of the two, I couldn't tell you.

edgyquant 3y ago
Why in the world is the whole network thing even legal? It’s seems like a way to guarantee certain doctors and insurance companies a steady stream of cash flow without having to compete with one another. It is a hilariously corrupt system, but that’s par for the course with the medical industry. One of the only professions where you can charge people to have provided no solutions to their problems. Image a mechanic who tells you your misfiring engine and squeaky breaks are nothing and then charges you a few grand for the pleasure of them being obviously wrong.
- Clamchop 3y ago
  Aside from such a scheme dominating a particular region and being a potential playground for other anticompetitive practices, nothing about the idea in general strikes me as inherently anticompetitive. Insurance cos can still compete on the merits of their networks and, in theory but sadly I think not in practice, these schemes could work in favor of the patients if the insurance company uses their network to balance cost with service quality. A very dominant one could effectively rule a region as a cartel, though.
- RajT88 3y ago
  > Why in the world is the whole network thing even legal? Lobbyists

orange-mentor 3y ago

How long will we Americans submit to these rent-seeking vampire insurance companies? Single-payer now, please.

wernercd 3y ago
So the answer to "rent seeking vampire insurance companies" is a rent seeking vampire government agency? No thank you. The answer to government created problems isn't a government created department. All you have to do is look at all of history to see the results of increased government power. Look at the lies of the unaffordable care act. look at the fact that things the government promises as "free" become unaffordable and worse.
- jackblemming 3y ago
  So what’s your solution then?
  - wernercd 3y ago
    Free market options with reasonable government regulations. What we had when this country had great healthcare options. You know... the stuff that was replaced with "Keep your Doctor", "keep your plan", "save $2500 a year" and other lies used to pass the unaffordable care act (and similar). There's a reason "Free Healthcare" can only pass with lies - and it's because government options/UHC/etc are lies for those who don't look at... well... history.
    - FireBeyond 3y ago
      The ACA was a travesty. But let's not forget that it was the only thing that really had any hope of passing, thanks to one political party. Funnily enough, speaking of lies and kool-aid, when you talk of ObamaCare to supporters of that political party, they are vehemently opposed. "What if, instead of ObamaCare, there was, say, an Affordable Care Act that did X, Y and Z?" (where X, Y and Z were actual features of the ACA) "Oh, that would be much better! I'd love that!"

ravenstine 3y ago

Why do I get the impression that the economy in 2023 is based on primarily fake things? So many things are either illusions, legal grifts, and outright ripoffs. This isn't anything new per se, but I think we may have gone beyond a critical threshold. Will the chickens come home to roost, or have things become so simulated that too many people believe ambiguously in the system for it to fail?

nerdponx 3y ago
It won't fall over (there are still lots of real things out there), but it's pretty much just basic economics. If you can make a fake thing instead of a real thing for significantly less cost, but could sell it for a similar price, why would you make the real thing?
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  To stay out of jail. Executives need to go to jail. Anything less won't fix this because the fish is rotting from the head.
orange-mentor 3y ago
History teaches us things can change fast. Think USSR in 1984. At some point things are going to give. We have the technical means to provide a decent life for everyone. And I mean everyone, including illegal immigrants sneaking across the border. And we could do all that while everyone struggles less. So yea. Most jobs are fake and stupid and don't need to be done. The ones that need doing could be given more support, distributed more evenly. This was a mainstream economic viewpoint less than a century ago. What happened?
- kube-system 3y ago
  It is a good thing that we have an economy where there are jobs for people to do things that 'don't need to be done'. This is the only way that a highly specialized capitalist society can provide income and purpose for everyone, and drive further innovation. People need income and jobs, even as we add more automation. As long as our society produces enough basic needs to actually support people, it is better that people are doing 'unnecessary' jobs rather than being unemployed as the result of automation. Everyone is worried that automation is going to steal people's jobs, and jobs won't exist anymore, but that has already been happening in full swing for 100+ years. 'Useless' jobs are and will continue to be the solution to that problem. (And I am using 'useless' rather tongue-in-cheek. The jobs do have real functional value, even if they're in higher parts of Maslow's hierarchy)

ogn3rd 3y ago

Even better, they refuse to remove therapists who no longer take insurance even after multiple attempts and letters requesting removal. It's a fun scam.

ada1981 3y ago

Many of the problems here might be a good use of simple AI to call / verify and keep on top of all these providers…

UtopiaPunk 3y ago
Oh heavens no
- sfink 3y ago
  It's ok, the AIs will just end up talking to the doctors' AIs, who will tell them GFY. /s?

more_corn 3y ago

This is true of every provider list of every insurance company I’ve ever used. It’s laughable bad. “That doctor hasn’t been at this office in ten years” “Not taking new patients”

UtopiaPunk 3y ago

I hate the health insurance system in the USA so much. It's just horrendously bad. I had a kid enter this world at right about the same time I changed jobs. That resulted in changing health insurance. On paper, this should have been a little expensive but fine because I paid extra money for Cobra to extend my coverage until the new plan kicked in. But it was such a mess. I was making phonecalls and sending emails and logging in to weird web portals with two different insurance companies, Cobra (which was managed by some mysterious other entity??), two different HR departments, and the finance people at the hospital for months trying to deal with this stuff. The hospital we were at was in-network for both insurance companies, but no one was communicating with each other (and apparently one doctor involved was not in-network, so there were extra charges, which is such bullshit). Why is my employer involved with my healthcare costs anyway? It's genuinely a Kafka-esque nightmare. Anyway, any presidential or congressional candidate that opposes universal healthcare doesn't get my vote, ever. Sorry Biden, but you don't automatically get my vote just because I disagree with the republican platform.