Al McCann

Review of Atrio health plans

I have the supplemental policy which covers dental...

I have the supplemental policy which covers dental and optical. I pay $396 a year for this coverage. It pays for one eye exam per year. For the last two years Atrio has refused to pay for my routine eye exam. They have a hidden rule that they have created that says if you are going to have a routine eye exam in order to get glasses, you can not have any other problems such as cataracts or they won t pay for the routine part of the exam. The exam was even cheaper because most was charged as medical. The bill was $46 instead of maybe $150 but that didn t matter. Atrio knows the Medicare rules, Medicare requires the billing to have a medical billing code for any procedures done during my annual cataract check even though the routine eye exam has nothing to do with my cataracts. So they created a rule that they would not pay for my routine eye exam if the doctor also checked my cataracts. So now I m concerned there may be other hidden rules like this that I won t discover until they decline payment. Several of my friends had Atrio when I turned 65 so I also joined. Now I m 72 and all of my friends have left to sign up with other companies. So what to do?