Insurance carriers are increasingly requiring their insureds to complete a Coordination of Benefits (COB). Basically, COB means your insurance carrier wants to verify if you have health insurance coverage with another plan or plans. Some carriers will mail you paperwork that you must complete, and some require you to call them to discuss your coverage. Even if you don't have any other health insurance coverage, you may still be required to notify your insurance carrier that you have just one health insurance policy. If you have more than one health insurance policy, you will need to notify your carrier what other coverage you have, as well as provide other information. What you will need to provide will vary by insurance carrier.
When you fail to complete your COB with your carrier, it will refuse to pay claims on your behalf until the issue is resolved. So please be proactive and complete your COB with your carrier as soon as possible.
If you get a notice from our office that your carrier has refused to pay a claim for a COB issue, you will need to contact your insurance carrier by calling the toll free number on the back of your insurance card. Insurance carriers do not allow us to resolve these issues on your behalf. After providing all necessary information to your insurance carrier, ask the representative to reprocess the claim(s) that was denied. Please notify our office after you have had this conversation with your insurance company so that we may follow up on this claim.
Here are some helpful phone numbers and websites:
Aetna – call the number on the back of your card or go to Aetna
Blue Cross Blue Shield – call (800) 200-3704 or complete this form BCBS. If you have more than 2 policies, please call BCBS at 1-800-565-9140.
Cigna – call the number on the back of your card or go to Cigna
Humana – contact the number on the back of your card.
Kaiser – call (800) 813-2000
Medicare – call (855) 798-2627 or go to Medicare
TriCare – call (800) 444-5445
UHC – call the number on the back of your card or go to UHC
UMR – call (866) 586-0613 or go to UMR. Go to MyTaskbar on the homepage, then on the taskbar, you’ll see an icon with a red exclamation point indicating that you need to provide other medical insurance information.