insurance question

[elfreda]

Does anyone have experience with Cigna health insurance?

Our Cobra medical coverage has to change, and our choices are Cigna and Kaiser. We've had Kaiser before, but Cigna is new to me. I've found a few review pages with very little good stuff to say about them.

Comments

[jillwheezul]

I may be weird, or it just may be a function of my military brat childhood, but I actually like Kaiser and its centralized structure. It makes more sense to me somehow.

[elfreda]

And I liked them a lot for my various minor issues. But Chuck went in with a locked up knee, and when he got to see an ortho surgeon, she told him to lose weight and exercise, he wasn't getting knee surgery. That was probably when his ACL detached. (not to mention all the bits and bobs of meniscus cartilage floating around like gravel in a garbage disposal...)

That was a lot of years ago, and I don't think he'd run into that attitude anymore, but he has a long memory! :-o

[ciorstan]

Kaiser refused my mother eardrum surgery some 40 years ago and put her on a useless, worthless no-sodium diet. Utimately she switched coverage and got the surgery, which severed the nerve in her inner ear that was giving her constant vertigo. She has been totally deaf in that ear ever since, but that's ok.

I have had a hate for them with the fire of 1000 burning suns since. Then I started hearing positive experiences from other people who have Kaiser coverage over the last few years.

My husband and I switched to Kaiser last October and have been very pleased. They are surprisingly PROACTIVE, unlike any other medical group I've ever had before. It took them less than a month to schedule my husband for surgery on his ingrown tonails and they got his BP under control immediately.

And your records are on-tap anywhere within Kaiser, so you're not limited to being seen at only one facility.

[elfreda]

I think KP really changed in the early 90s or so. Chuck's knee experience was in the mid/late 80s.

I liked KP a lot. (Although, now that I think about it, Charlie was born during a KP nurses' strike, and and we have quite the story about my South'n Baptist preachin', picket line crossin' nurse...) I was sad to leave them the last time Chuck changed jobs.

[rectangularcat]

I was with Cigna when living in the US. I hated them and had to appeal every little thing. Phone hold times were terrible. Granted that was 8 years ago so they may have improved.

[gulenay_barb]

I've had cigna, did not have one positive experience with them. Liked kaiser enough to go to work for them.

[elfreda]

So much stuff to consider. Thank you all for the input, it helps! :-)

[sammurphy]

I had Kaiser back in the 70's and had horror stories as well. But I was so impressed with how they worked with Bonnie and family in her long terminal trip that I am probably going to opt for Kaiser over BC in July. I can't afford both BC and their ever increasing co-pay/deductible any more.There is something to be said for knowing what it's going to cost up front instead of medical sticker shock.