By Drexel University’s Wellness Consultant Monica Fauble
Health Advocate is best known around campus for administering Drexel University’s award-winning wellness incentive platform for benefits-eligible faculty and professional staff as well as their eligible partners/spouses.
But did you know that Health Advocate is also available to resolve any healthcare billing issues, answer questions about your healthcare coverage, find an in-network physician, or help you understand a medical diagnosis? There’s all of that and so much more, and that information is available online.
Health Advocate has a full staff of benefits specialists, RNs (registered nurses) and even Medicare specialists ready to help you make the most of the healthcare options available to you.
I recently had the opportunity to test out the value of this service firsthand. In March of this year, my husband and I both went to a new primary care physician for our annual physical exams. As Drexel’s wellness consultant, I believe that preventive care is, of course, very important to me, and I make it part of my mission to stay on track with screening guidelines.
We were expecting a $0 copay for this preventative care visit. But the provider mistakenly billed both my husband and I several hundred dollars each ($207 to be precise).
After 45 terrible minutes on hold and on the phone, I was told by the provider that there was nothing they could do to help me sort this billing error out.
I then reached out to Health Advocate for help. They connected my husband and me with a Benefits Specialist. We each electronically signed a HIPAA-release so that she could contact both Independence Blue Cross (IBX), our health plan provider, and the physician’s office on our behalf.
Though I had six weeks of waiting for all sorts of communication between IBX, the provider and Health Advocate, those six weeks were fairly stress-free for me, knowing that I had Health Advocate available to take care of this issue for me.
Eventually, the claims for both me and my husband were resubmitted by the provider to IBX as a “preventive care physical examination” and our cost owed was reduced to $0 each. A rightful win!
Health Advocate didn’t stop there though. They called the provider after the claims were resubmitted and reduced to $0 to request documentation from the provider stating that they had received the payment from the health plan and that my husband and I both had $0 responsibility for this visit. Health Advocate was incredibly thorough and rightfully so.
Knowing that Health Advocate was by my side not only saved me money, but it also saved me an incredible amount of stress and strain.
If you have a billing issue, need help understanding your healthcare benefits or want to find an in-network physician, please consider reaching out to Health Advocate. Don’t miss out on this valuable service provided to you by Drexel University.
This benefit cannot only help you; it’s designed to support your entire family structure.
Health Advocate’s “Advocacy” service is available at NO COST for all full-time and part-time benefits-eligible faculty and professional staff. This service is also available at no cost to eligible household members of benefits-eligible faculty and professional staff. This includes: a benefits-eligible employee’s spouses/partner, dependents, the employee’s parents, and even their parents-in-law.
Please visit our website for a complete list of examples of how Health Advocate can help you and your family reduce the confusion, the stress, and maybe even the financial strain, that sometimes comes with receiving healthcare. https://drexel.edu/hr/benefits/other-benefits/health-advocate/