Health Care Form - getting worse

Remember Al? Remember how I was optimistic about him getting dis-enrolled out of "GreenCare"? I was wrong to be that optimistic. Al, a Tasks client, is now caught in the dysfunctional managed care plan which will not provide him the medical care he desperately needs...


Al has a bright and experienced Tasks Unlimited Case Manager, Peg (not real name), who is now advocating for him full time. Since her involvement, I thought that she could help spring him from the clutches of "GreenCare" on Aug. 1, 2008. But I was wrong; I underestimated how difficult it would be. Turns out that it is easier for a court-committed patient to escape from Anoka State Hospital than to dis-enroll from managed care.

• In early July 2008, Al's Case Manager, Peg, had him send his GreenCare Coordinator the dis-enrollment form. But Peg was informed that it was the wrong form.
• Peg requested that the correct form be mailed to her, but the Coordinator didn't have the correct form and referred her to someone else
• The other person didn't have the correct form either.
• This went back and form several times, until it was determined that the correct forms didn't exist. A letter would be sufficient, but it had to be sent to someone else at GreenCare.
• Peg sent the letter as directed, but that didn't work either. The recipient suggested sending the letter to "someone at the State," but she wasn't sure who.
  

Meanwhile, July has ended and August has begun. As I write, Al is still enrolled in GreenCare and is still without the medical services he needs, and still ineligible for M.A. because the funds the government would otherwise use to pay for his health care are still going to GreenCare. Peg will continue to advocate on Al's behalf; maybe Al can get his health care restored in September but I'm now cautiously optimistic.

My theory? There are no procedures for dis-enrollment. During the planning stages of privatization, I (and others) asked about dis-enrollment and were repeatedly told that anyone could dis-enroll at any time, and they continue to insist that this is true. No one at GreenCare, or at any other insurance companies, bothered to come up with a dis-enrollment process. They don't even have the forms!

To the insurance companies I ask you this: If you can't take care of one person, how do you propose you will take care of everyone on M.A.? I want them to explain to Al why he can't get his post-operation check-ups and why all the promises they made don't apply to him.