Insurance agent job
Minivan bumpers may not protect much, but they sure do 
CIGNA denied a girl's liver transplant, saying it was "experimental," then changed it's mind after 150 family, friends, and nurses association members protested outside CIGNA headquarters. But the reversal was too late, Natalee Sarkisian, 17, died last night at UCLA medical center. The insurance company had initially agreed to pay for the liver transplant, but then after Natalee developed a lung infection, then got a bone marrow transplant from her brother, delayed, and then denied coverage, the family says. She was in a vegetative state, battling leukemia. In an email sent out shortly before Natalee died, the insurance company wrote, " ... CIGNA HealthCare has decided to make an exception in this rare and unusual case and we will provide coverage should she proceed with the requested liver transplant." Score another one for the bean counters.
The WSJ Health Blog alerts us to the existence of predatory sales scams involving private fee for service (PFFS) Medicare plans.
PFFS is neither traditional Medicare, nor is it the same as private managed care, because it doesn't have an official network of providers.
They are popular among seniors who want the freedom to choose their doctors and avoid the restrictions of managed-care plans. The government pays PFFS insurers on average 19% above the traditional Medicare costs, which allows them to offer richer benefits with lower costs to patients. But, partly because the plans are new and unfamiliar to many providers, some doctors don't accept PFFS plans. Earlier this year,
"A few months ago, the pipe under my front lawn which leads to the water main, as well as two of my neighbors' pipes, burst as a result of city firefighters cleaning the hydrants and shutting the water off too quickly. There was a nice little stream going down the street until the city came and shut off our water the next day, routing our service through a different (unaffected) neighbor's pipes. The Water Services Department informed us that we were financially responsible for hiring a plumber to make the repairs, and that if we failed to do so within 30 days, we would be disconnected from our neighbor's service. All of the estimates we got from plumbers came in around $1,500."Of course, we tried to fight the city on this, but to make a long story short, we lost. To make matters worse, the city reversed its decision at one point, leading us to believe that they would pay for the repairs, then waited a month and decided again that they weren't responsible. All this time, we were drawing water from my neighbor's service, so his water pressure was terrible (as was all of ours) and there was nothing he could do about it. Thanks to the city's flip-flopping, we were finally able to get the repairs done just three weeks ago, after dealing with poor water pressure for over two months.In speaking with other neighbors who had seen the same thing happen before, I was told that, in their experience, insurance companies typically don't cover this kind of damage. Nevertheless, I thought it was at least worth making a claim and seeing what happened, so I called USAA (of which we're members because my wife's grandfather was an airline pilot), and to my great surprise was immediately told that it was covered (minus our $500 deductible
