Experiences with united healthcare
I am hopefully starting a new job soon, and their health and vision insurance is UHC. We can also choose a regional plan (UPMC for anyone in the western PA area) through my wife's job.
All my previous employers have been local, so we've always had UPMC coverage. This is my first time dealing with a national insurance company.
Likely my new plan will be be less expensive and have lower deductibles than my wife's.
Pittsburgh is split between UPMC (a hospital system that grew an insurance arm) and AHN (an insurance provider who grew a hospital system). Ironically, UHC may offer me more options since they seem to have most of the UPMC and AHN providers in their network.
I've checked all my doctors and the major hospitals, and they are all listed as in-network. I'm already getting my maintenance medications through CostPlus, so I'm not that worried about prescriptions.
My wife and I are in our 40s and relatively healthy, but I know we are reaching the point where (statistically, and looking at friends the same age) we're likely to have some big health events in the next five years.
Outside the very obvious news story that comes to mind when thinking about UHC, what are your experiences with them? Things to watch out for? Things you wish you knew going in?
My cousin had United in New Jersey. The good: she did find a PCP in her area, and the PCP did have appointments regularly available.
The bad: she could never get a comprehensive appointment with him; each appointment dealt only with a single issue, with no real consideration of other factors. Like, she could see him about her allergies, but if she also wanted to go over her thyroid problem, that had to be a separate appointment, that kind of thing. It very much felt like the doctor was maximizing whatever they were paying him. He was decent about continuing to prescribe existing meds (not sure if she got put on any new meds) and giving referrals to specialists.
Specialist referral was where everything went wrong. UHC had a massive book of all the doctors "in their network". Her PCP would give her a referral for something - let's say an annual obgyn exam. If he recommended a specific doctor, she'd call them, only to find out that they no longer accepted her coverage, so she'd start calling the doctors listed in the book, only to find that almost none of the "in network" doctors accepted her plan. The very small handful that did still accept it weren't accepting new patients.
She called UHC customer service to find more doctors who were in-network and accepting patients; absolutely the only thing they did was read her names and addresses from their book, despite her repeatedly telling them that those doctors no longer accepted her plan or weren't accepting new patients. UHC just told her to keep calling the doctors listed in the book.
She called literally every obgyn listed in the book for New Jersey, trying to get an appointment. It took her hours and hours, over a period of days. There were only two obgyns that were still in-network and still accepting new patients - and they were literally three hours away at the other end of the state - like she lives in Cape May county and the doctors were in Sussex county. Plus they wanted her to make two separate visits to the office, at least a week apart, and they insisted that any bloodwork or mammograms be done locally to them. And I think one of them didn't have appointments available anytime in the next six months?
Every referral was like that: no one took her insurance (despite being listed the The Book and despite customer service saying that they were) or they weren't accepting new patients. She had to do everything herself, manually. It took a lot of time and a lot of effort, day after day spent on the phone. She moved off UHC as soon as she could.
I dunno, dude. Maybe it's different in Pennsy, maybe things have changed, maybe it's a different kind of plan. But you might try calling up some of those doctors listed in the book and see if they're actually accepting whatever your insurance will be - and also accepting new patients, and when y'all might be able to get an appointment with them. My cousin was in tears with me because she kept bleeding and couldn't find an obgyn to take her for months, and it was literally at the other end of the state.
She's with Horizon BC/BS now, and much much happier.
I had UHC for several years when I was living and working in Kansas City. Typical PPO plan. Think my deductible was like $1000.
I had no issues. That said, I don't have any major health issues (that I'm aware of). So it was just going to my GP for checkups or when I had some typical ailment. My doctor, who had I been going to since I was a teenager, was in-network. I think the only specialist I went to was a dermatologist a couple times for a biopsy and Rx. Only thing that was annoying with the dermatologist was just like 4wk wait, which was annoying, but my old dermatologist was like a 3mo wait. Either way, not UHC's fault. No issues with either doctors. I never had any issues with any prescriptions not being on a formulary. But I think any Rx I had at the time were generics anyway.
During that time, I had one surgery: getting all my wisdom teeth removed. No billing issues with UHC. Some confusion over the deductible on my end (this was the first surgery I had as an adult, so first time dealing with this stuff beyond routine health visits), but I took care of it with the oral surgeon.
I was actually pretty happy with UHC. To the point I was surprised to hear about all the shit UHC pulled on people after Luigi Luigi'd the CEO. But again, I didn't deal with catastrophic or life-threatening health issues. Regardless, all that was a factor in my switch from my UHC PPO to a HDCP with Aetna for 2025.