The much-anticipated Notice of Proposed Settlement for the United Healthcare (UHC) class action lawsuit about Out-of-Network (OON) charges being improperly reimbursed has finally landed in my mailbox—perhaps yours, too.
Chances are, if you’ve received the UHC OON settlement notice, you glazed over it and tossed it aside while simultaneously feeling some sort of nagging inside—that nagging you feel when you know you should do something but it’s just too much of a pain in the ass to do it. Windexing the windows falls into this category as well. The difference between the windows and the UHC settlement though is that at least you KNOW how to do the windows; just try to figure out how to submit a claim for this settlement.
So I’m going to go through the process with you—yes, I’m going to fill out the paperwork and post about it so I can feel your pain and hopefully help you make sense of it all along the way. And so our little journey begins…
The UHC OON Proposed Settlement in hand, I rip it open to find a sea of text that immediately starts to confuse me. It’s not the lawsuit I’m confused about—we’ve followed the AMA v. UHC class action. It’s what the heck I need to do now. So I force myself to read the hideously dense serif text and here’s what I need to do:
1. Ask myself, was I a United Healthcare Subscriber…
at all between March 15, 1994 through November 18, 2009? Ok, yes, I was.
2. How long do I have to submit a Claim Form for this?
(i.e., how long can I procrastinate?) I have until October 5, 2010 to submit a UHC settlement Read the rest of this entry »