Health First Review

I have Health First medicare advantage. My doctor prescribed Trelegy for my COPD. I received my Trelegy medication January 3rd for the 30 day medication. I went for my refill and the pharmacy said the insurance won't refill until February 21st. I have called Health First and they said they will research it. Meanwhile I have been without my breathing medication for a few days. I have called again with no results. I don't know what to do ...

Any company that would hire a corrupt unethical medical provider like Kristine Zonka ( google Kristine Isnardi) either didn’t do their homework or just doesn’t care

It's to bad to talk about it. Run away as far as you can.

Stay away from healthfirst. Avoid at all costs. This is the worst insurance company. They do not pay claims even when they state that it is covered.

My today's visit to Healthfirst office was great! Elizabeth, Healthfirst agent helped me with my questions and registration. Very professional, respectful and knowledgeable.
I m very satisfied!
Thank you Elizabeth and thank you Healthfirst!

No person interface yet, only circling sites and phones and the doctor you choose must consent in being a sponsor. I suspect it is one of those buildings where people going in never come out.

Shahena akther is one of the best employees bcz her good manners and courtesy. She help me change other insurance to health first. Now I really know health first is the best plan Nyc, thanks Shahena & your company. I'm so appreciate bcz health first safe my wife life. Can't explain more. God bless.

I would rate this company a 0 if I could. My son died recently and I had costs associated with his death. I got behind in paying my monthly premium. I called to make a payment plan for the past-due premium amounts. My payment plan request was denied and I was told my health insurance would cancel retroactively. This means I will incur the potential hundreds/thousands of dollars in medical costs for my mammogram, lab work, and doctor visit I had during the period I presumed I had medical coverage. I understood my health coverage would terminate, but to not allow me to have a payment plan and terminate my health coverage retroactively is a cruel and nasty.

This is Insurance has gotten worse and worse!! now they transferred the provider line overseas and they're not even trained well...they communicate via email and don't solve problems!! I asked to speak with a manager and she hung up on me.. When they can't help you they either keep you on hold until you finally give up and hang up or they disconnect the line..ugh!! Customer service are awful and your inquiries and issues never get resolved with them!! don't choose this insurance go with Metroplus or Healthplus...their great!! this company sucks!!

The biggest garbage for its services, coverage and customer service

It s shocking that this company hasn t been shut down yet. They can t bill properly, their coverage is a borderline scam, and even after saying that they ve shut your account they still continue to bill you. Literally the worst company I have ever dealt with - they make cable companies look competent and honest. The sooner they go out of business the sooner New Yorkers will stop getting ripped off by them.

HEALTHFIRST just terminated my insurance, after I had tried to call several times, I have never missed a payment, but their new portal system wouldn t let me through to payment site, and I was disconnected with every phone call, this is really bad customer service, I tried to follow every link on their website and email I received and no assistance, now they won t re-enroll due that they claim I passed the grace period of payment, even though they admit their system is down. I already have a case number, but it s really hard to know what to do now.

This company is not only poorly organized and has literally no customer service, they also don t have paperless statements!!!!!! I have gotten more than 50 letters from them this year alone. That s scandalous!
They just don t have the option to go paperless

I returned ill from a vacation. Went to see Dr and was told my insurance wasn t valid. Long story short, HealthFirst canceled my plan due to non-payment even though I thought I was on auto-pay w/ paperless billing. Boy was I wrong. Now I don t have insurance until open enrollment. They refused to reinstate me even though I offered to pay everything owed at once. Filed a complaint through NY Health and local representatives to no avail. Do NOT trust your healthcare to this company it s very bad.

I am a member of the Gold Leaf plan. Apparently each type of HF plan has separate offices, I have a much better experience with the Child Health Plus insurance. Here are the main issues with the Gold Leaf plan, with examples of my experiences:

Number of In-network doctors and the quality of the portal:
The list of in-network Doctors who take the insurance is EXTREMELY limited if not absent for some specialties. Don't get fooled by the listing that shows in the portal. Once you call almost no doctors or none take the insurance. Curiously, I found two doctors who take it who are not in the portal. The list is completely outdated and there is a lack of in-network doctors taking the insurance. And don't call customer "service" . All they do is go on the outdated portal themselves. Make sure to reserve about 3 business hours to make phone calls and take a calming tee if you need a doctor. You will be infuriated, unless you are ok with going to a clinic, wait for hours and wonder why you pay for the insurance.

Pre-authorizations for everything, including a bandage:
Yes, when you finally find a Doctor, they drive his/her office crazy with pre-authorizations for everything. They are processed by 3rd party companies and take 14 days!!!! That is, if your Doctor's request gets approved. Plus they are not coordinated with Health First: when the doctor calls HF they say you need the authorization. Then they call the 3rd party office, they say they don't have the function delegated. So at the end, the doctor's office calls in circles to conclude that there is nobody assigned to authorize the treatment or evaluation that you need.

Billing:
The billing office for the Gold Leaf plan posts incorrect and unexplained amounts on the bills. It takes them over a month to update information so it may be that if you paid early, it always looks like you didn't pay the previous balance. Even though I paid well in advance (the 10th or 15th of the previous month), customer service was not able to clarify the discrepancies being posted. There is no way to pay online because there is no option to pay a different amount than the incorrect posted one.
After spending hours on the phone trying to find out what the problem is without finding an answer, one gets the menacing letter saying that they will cut your service, even though there is proof of timely payments for the premiums. Managers escalate your case but nothing gets resolved. Two weeks later you log in and the bill is still wrong.
Update: The portal finally shows the right amount. It only took 6 month and several, several phone calls.

Problems typically don't get resolved:
If you have any of the above problems, you may be able to place a complain over the phone. Different agents call afterwards and tell you that they will monitor phone calls and "take it from there". This is as far as I got. Checking on old phone calls may help their company improve their service, but it doesn't help you as a patient when you are in need of medical services that are time sensitive, alas, you are in pain. You continue to have the problem which is unresolved. Another response that I got from an agent was that I should go to NYState of Health and find a new insurance ?!

this insurance company is horrible claims dont get there even when you send electronic , paper and thru portal . if they get the claim , they dont process claims correctly . rejecting everything and anything they can reject called the provider service rep andrew hutchinson does nothing to fix.

This is the most unprofessional company. They should not be allowed to do business. Cancelled my son s health insurance without notice. Not sure that is even legal. Stay away from this health insurance company.

i called today to ask if my doctor was on their approved list, because i was considering changing to this company. Their phone system is atrocious, couldn't hear each other, kept cutting out, she took my number "in case we get cut off" and when we did, never called me back. Forget it.

I'm trying to switch over to health first and it's my window to do so. I've spoken with two different operators in Asia and THEY DO NOT EVEN KNOW ABOUT THE WINDOW FOR CHSNGING!!
Nor do they understand the finer points I'm trying to make; EASY points.
It is seriously turning me off.
I need a natural English speaker who is familiar AT LEAST with the fact that our window is limited to less than one month to change companies.
Very unsatisfactory.

I had a situation with Callen lorde clinic, In which a medication was changed to a generic form without my knowledge and I was charged more for the generic brand. I health first to file a complaint. My complaint was taken but was overly paraphrased. Health first called the clinic and took their into and then closed the case without verification of the information they were given. Horrible customer service.