Are you one of the ones who has hospitals and doctors chasing you for money? Did Anthem Blue Cross or Blue Shield drop you after they approved your medical procedure? Is your credit ruined with this whole process of hospital bills not paid and no one giving you answers? Well your day may be here. Anthem Blue Cross parent WellPoint Inc. agreed Monday to pay $11.8 million to settle claims from about 480 California hospitals that it failed to cover the bills of patients it dropped after they were treated -- a controversial practice known as rescission.
The hospitals sued after scores of their patients contended in their own lawsuits that Blue Cross had illegally dropped them.
As a condition of the deal, the hospitals agreed to stop trying to collect payments for the disputed bills from patients. Anthem Blue Cross still faces separate class-action suits from the state's physicians over bills from patients the company canceled after they treated them. It also faces a class-action suit filed on behalf of more than 6,000 patients dropped by the company since 2001.
So hold on you people who are about to get paid.
For more check out LA Times and Lisa Girion