Danita LaShelle Jones, an HAE caregiver advocate, shares how involving physicians early helped her family navigate insurance denials and secure care. Read her column, “From the Caregiver’s HAErt.”
Transcript
One of my life hacks when it comes to talking with insurance companies, especially when you’re trying to get coverage or when you’re trying to get care, is to immediately involve the physicians.
In the very beginning, when we were going back and forth with insurance companies and trying to denote the seriousness of why we needed a lot of Ladybug’s medicines covered, we were doing it on our own.
I ultimately realized it was so much easier when we involve the biologics department from the physician team. They actually know a lot of the ins and outs of what insurances need, and the coding, and things of that nature.
And oftentimes, we also realize that it was necessary for us to get right on top of it as soon as we got a denial, or as soon as we got a question, as soon as we were running into any obstacles.
We immediately would inform those doctors like, “Hey, this is what we were told. This is the letter that we got.”
And in our experience, which we know sometimes can differ from others, but in our experience that has been the best thing to do is to involve the people that know what they’re doing immediately so that they can help us navigate what we need to do later on.