Health Insurance!

I do not understand Health Insurance.  Why do they have to make things so complicated?  In my mind, if you are insured, you should be covered, that simple.  Unfortunately it is not that simple and I am convinced that Health Insurance companies are the devil and do not care about one's heath at all and instead only care about making money.

Currently I am still on my graduate student health plan.  Prior to even visiting my surgeon I checked to see if he was in-network.  Of course with my luck he was not.  So I asked the podiatrist I saw to refer me to another specialist in hopes that I could find one that was in-network.  He did and of course that specialist was also out-of-network.  After several phone calls to my insurance company, I was told it would be ok because my policy states that if there I can not find a doctor within a 50 mile radius that the doctor I see will be treated as in-network.  So great, right?  In the midst of all of this, my insurance company informs be that foot operations are not covered and they use the phrase "subluxation of the foot".  Well this confused me as well because I had "subluxation of the peroneal tendons".  The foot and ankle are relatively close and I feared that for some reason this would not be covered now.  No one at the insurance company wanted to confirm that the foot and ankle are separate and not to worry until I called one day at the doctors office prior to getting x-rays demanding a clear answer.  A nice woman told me the feet and ankle are separate and not to worry.  Great!

Next thing I know, I am getting a letter in the mail asking me to state how the injury occurred, when it occurred, and where.  So I sent that information in.  Then I get a claim letter for the first doctors appointment with the surgeon and they did not treat it as in-network.  So I called my insurance company again probably for at least the 20th time.  They transferred me to someone else, who said I should have seen an orthopedic surgeon closer to home who was in-network.  After arguing for quite some time she finally looked up my call history and could see how many times I had called and saw that someone did in fact tell me it should be treated as in-network!  HA!  After that she waived her magic wand and said ok it will be treated as in-network and apologized.  Then she was extremely nice to me and I started to feel somewhat bad for being so bitchy on the phone.  Then she said she wasn't sure if the hospital would be treated as in-network.  I no longer felt bad for being bitchy.  I told her I didn't know I could control what hospital my doctor could preform surgery at.  She said I couldn't, so I then asked her why I would be responsible for paying that.  I am still waiting to hear the final answer on that one.

So my question is, why did they make it so complicated?  Prior to surgery, I was worried so much about the cost of all of this that I was in tears.  Its stressful enough knowing you have to have surgery and are going to be laid up for 8 weeks, why can't insurance companies make things easier for you instead of more complicated?

I am hoping when I start my new job my insurance will be much better and not as difficult to work with. This was pretty ridiculous.  I honestly think health insurance should be a right and not a privilege.  I am lucky in that my insurance is going to be footing the majority of the bill.  But I still feel the need to bitch about this experience because it was so irritating.

Monday will be my half-way point!  Almost done!