What to Know
It’s one thing to be denied healthcare coverage for yourself, or even your kids. But for the insurance company to send a letter to your newborn baby to inform them of their ineligibility to be covered under your family plan is a whole other story. That’s what happened for one dad, Blake Wexler, on TikTok.
He explains in a video that one of his newborn twins was denied coverage for a hospital stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). UnitedHealthcare sent a letter to make sure the infant knew what was going on. But why coverage would be denied for one twin and not the other is another question in this mess.
The healthcare denial letter was addressed to one of the babies.
@blakewexler Give it up for the US healthcare system! #healthinsurance #newparent #Twins #nicubaby #healthcare ♬ original sound – Blake Wexler
Blake explains in his video that his twins had to stay in the NICU after they were born. Apparently, because of the costly stay and medical charges, his healthcare provider said, “That’s gonna be a no from me, dawg.” Well, not in those words exactly, but the same sentiment was there when one of Blake’s twins received the letter.
“So my wife and I just got a letter from UnitedHealthcare telling us that they’re denying coverage for our twin’s stay in the NICU,” Blake says in the video. “And if you thought that was inhumane, you’re right. But listen to this. They didn’t address it to me or my wife, you know, like human adults. They addressed the letter to the baby. Sadly, I guess it is appropriate that our preemie baby’s first experience in the world is having its healthcare coverage denied.”
He also says that he wants to know if the baby was still in his wife”s womb, would UnitedHealthcare have sent the letter there, to make sure it reached the infant? The whole thing is wild enough, so anything seems possible at this point. Blake also shares a quick shot of the mail and, sure enough, it’s addressed to “Baby Girl Twin A.”
One user on TikTok joked in the comments, “I can’t believe you just opened Baby Twin Girl A’s mail like that.”
“Put it in the baby book under ‘first piece of mail,'” another user wrote.
The same thing happened to another parent of infant twins.
Blake isn’t the first parent to receive a letter of this nature that was sent to his child instead of addressed to him. In the comments, one parent wrote, “This happened to me. Baby A was covered but baby B was not because they said I already had a baby that day.”
They added that they were able to fight it, but that it took a lot of fighting through paperwork and endless calls.
To that, someone commented, “It’s just sad that you had to fight it at all. Insurance companies do things like this because so many people don’t fight, they just accept that that’s what it is and pay whatever the hospital tells them to do.”
Another parent commented, “When we had twins in the NICU we got a claim denied because, wait for it…Duplicate claims.”
There are a lot of criticisms of the health insurance industry.
@drmasterson Another day, another denial. #healthcare #insurance #privatepractice #surgeon ♬ original sound – Dr. Caleb Masterson
A doctor on TikTok, whose name is Dr. Caleb Masterson, posted a video where he asks someone off-camera about UnitedHealthcare procedures that get approval for a surgery, but are later denied after medical records are requested. The person off-camera says that 40-50% of the cases result in this issue. It’s about getting a “clinical review” and delaying the process.
“And then is there any new information that is included in that clinical review that wasn’t provided to them in the prior off?” He asks, to which the answer is essentially no. “So all the clinical information that they’re reviewing is the same? They’re just delaying the reimbursement? Cool. Just so everybody knows that.”
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