Insurance Companies Routinely Reject Claims

 LA Times:

California health insurers reject [over] 1 in 5 medical claims. Six of the state's largest insurers rejected 45.7 million claims for medical care, or 22% of all claims, from 2002 to June 30, 2009, according to the California Nurses Assn.'s analysis of data submitted to regulators by the companies. ...said Nicole Kasabian Evans, spokeswoman for the California Assn. of Health Plans. "It appears that a good deal of the so-called denials are merely paperwork issues," she said. Brown's office said that his deputies would soon review records and complaints. "These high denial rates suggest a system that is dysfunctional, and the public is entitled to know whether wrongful business practices are involved," Brown said. Doctors complain that too often insurers delay, shortchange or deny legitimate claims. "Getting health insurers to pay their fair share of medical claims can be as much of a headache for physicians as it is for patients," said Rebecca Patchin, an anesthesiologist at Loma Linda University and board chairwoman of the American Medical Assn. She said each insurer has a different set of "obscure, bureaucratic rules for processing and paying medical claims" that result in as much as $210 billion of "unnecessary cost" annually, studies have shown.