Apparently my private health insurance covers pharmacogenetics testing to find the best ADHD medication. What is it, is it legit? What's the company going to do with my cheek swabs? How do doctors feel about me going up to them and say hey internet pharma bro tells me I should be taking this instead of what your years of medical school thinks.

What I can't figure out is how my insurance company benefits from this. I'm not paying extra for this service so I must be the product right? Here's part of the marketing FAQ info from my insurance provider:

Personalized Medicine uses advanced pharmacogenetic testing and pharmacist assistance to find the most effective medication for you.

If you’re starting a new medication for a mental health condition (such as anxiety or depression), chronic pain, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or neurological conditions – or taking a medication for one of these conditions and it’s not working or causing side effects – Personalized Medicine could help. It’s offered through your extended health care benefits plan, so the cost of the test may be covered. To see the list of drugs tested, click here.

It involves a pharmacogenetic test. This is a type of test that identifies how you may respond to medications. Your test results are only for you and anyone you give consent to share them with, such as your doctor. The test is run by Personalized Prescribing Inc., a Canadian company. Manulife

(Forgot to mention this is for a Canadian employment extended health insurance.)

My wife and I are having a baby just 1.5 months from now (hooray!). And our insurance provider, Anthem Blue Cross, is cutting coverage to our local hospital network and maternity services in 10 days (boooo!). The entire process of finding out about this (via the news, not our insurance or the hospital) and getting continued coverage has been an absolute nightmare. We jumped the hoops, sent in all the required paperwork, and even got the billing department at the hospital involved. We're still only covered if we happen to be lucky enough that the doctor who is named on the continued coverage agreement happens to be on call at the time of delivery, otherwise it'll be out of pocket to the tune of $10,000 of dollars. At this point it feels like we're betting it all on red.

The response to the United Healthcare shooting illustrated just how frustrated people of the US are in their healthcare system and I'd like to do my part to continue to keep that topic front of mind in the American psyche. I've written up a little op-ed on our experience and I was wonder if any Tilderinos have managed to get one published before. Any insight would be very welcome.

After deciding to get back into the gym after a long hiatus, I was shopping around my area and trying to decide between Crunch or LA Fitness, each for about $40/mo, plus steep initiation fees and annual fees. Searching for a way to get a discounted rate, I stumbled across One Pass Select, offered by my health insurer, United Healthcare. While I was fully prepared to dunk on United, because of how often Dr. Glaucomflecken does, this particular member benefit turned out to be pretty great.

One Pass Select essentially functions as a gym aggregator, offering multiple memberships for one flat rate. So rather than paying Crunch or LA Fitness $40/mo and being subjected to their terms/conditions, I pay One Pass Select $36/mo and get access to:

• Crunch
• LA Fitness
• Anytime Fitness
• Workout Anytime

And a handful of other gyms I haven't signed up for, because they're not convenient to me. Four gym memberships for $36/mo is pretty cool. Plus if I ever want to cancel, I just cancel my One Pass Select membership from their website, instead of having to sacrifice a squirrel on the 8th day of the sabbath under a blood moon while chanting gregorian monk (the level of difficulty it felt like the last time I wanted to cancel a gym membership).

A quick Google indicates that other insurers offer similar programs:

• UHC has One Pass Select
• Cigna/BCBS/Kaiser have Active&Fit Direct
• BCBS also has Fitness Your Way
• Aetna has GlobalFit

This was a great find for me, that I'd never even heard of before. Sharing it to hopefully benefit someone else, as well!

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?

Edit: thanks everyone for your input. This largely confirms my expectations, but I appreciate people taking the time to share.

I was recently removed from medi-cal due to “potential fraud”. Long story short, I didn’t commit fraud. I have had zero income in over a year, have something like $1500 total, and receive no other benefits.

However, I’m currently dealing with bureaucratic confusion as the trail of who is responsible has dead ended and no one seems to be clear on what happened or why.

The medi-cal coordinator at the county social services office thinks it’s best if I just reapply but while I wait for my new application to be processed I am uninsured. Of course, if it goes through then I should have coverage dating back to the 1st of April.

Yet, given that there’s no good reason for it to have been canceled in the first place I’m wary of placing all my eggs in that basket. And would prefer to have some sort of catastrophe insurance if at all possible.

Is this even possible in California? It seems like short term health insurance might be banned here? Any ideas would be welcome. The whole situation is frustrating to say the least.