Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield

I am going out on a limb to say that my mind is turned around after having been miraculously connected with a true professional by emailing
. Not only was the woman, a Grievances & Appeals Risk Analyst I from their Executive Services Department, courteous and attentive, she went out of her way over more than a week’s time to keep me apprised as to how my issue was being handled. When it looked as though Empire was going to make me pay the whole premium even though I was able to show that I was getting a sizable assistance credit from the state, she «ruffled some feathers» to (a) have my policy issued so I would have a policy number, (b) have my bill adjusted to the correct amount, and © coordinated my paying it by having someone call me to take my credit card.
Suffice it to say, I requested her supervisor’s contact information. Frankly, I think she deserves a Medal of Professionalism. She gets 5 stars, although Empire itself only gets 2; splitting the difference with 4 stars.
So again, if you want to get anywhere with this company, I HIGHLY recommend emailing
.

Signed up through the NYS Marketplace on ¹²⁄₁₈. It is ¹²⁄₃₀ and I have not received a bill and I have not heard a peep from them. No bill, no ID card, nothing. I tried calling them but all I get is music. I press a bunch of buttons to direct me to the right location and then I get music — nothing else. I called many times and each time all I get is music. I tried finding different numbers to call — responsive ones — but I could not find any. Coverage was supposed to start January 1. I will probably try to sign up with another plan at the end of January — or as soon as possible — if this what I can expect. So far, I would give them a «zero» if I could.

The worst. I wish that I could give 0 stars. I pay $ 693 a month, just for me (that’s just medical, I don’t have dental). In the last 6 months, I have only used Empire BCBS for 2 prescriptions and they had the nerve to deny one, saying that it wasn’t covered by the «Platinum» plan. Not surprising, since they seem to cover nothing. I had to have the doctor call over and over. They send bills saying that I «owe» them money, and when I call to question it, I am told that they were «giving me the option of paying not only the coming month, but the month after that». There was no itemization on the bill, no mention that they were billing me 2 months in advance, just a statement saying that I «owed» this amount, when in fact, I was fully paid. They are beyond shameless. In addition, the contract that I signed was for $ 655 per month. BCBS made the error of giving me a plan including a 29 yo dependent (I have no kids), and no amount of calls, promises of returned calls, letters, speaking to supervisors or even my lawyer contacting them has resolved it. I am still billed $ 693/​month erroneously. I cannot wait until this contract is up. THEY ARE THE WORST. Please go elsewhere for insurance! I can’t wait until I can switch.

The worst customer service support for billing I have ever seen in my life. Absolute joke…

Horrible. Terrible service. A nightmare to talk to them. Unpleasant people. You will receive tons of bills that you should probably not receive. They will tend not to cover your preventive exams. Be alert. If you decide to go for this be ready to be screwed.
I was a member for 4 months. It has been my worst experience in NY so far (I have been here 15 years). I am still receiving bills for their horrible service and I am still spending HOURS on the phone waiting to talk to someone. Mostly of the time, when you call, you’ll be dealing with a computer and when you are almost about giving up, a person picks up. And then, the best comes: from now on, you won’t be able to understand what the person says at all, so bad the communication is, disturbed and noisy. And when you hear something it is enough to understand how unpleasant this person is.
Run away.

What a joke! After I signed up and Blue Cross and Blue Sheild took my $ 561 a month 3 weeks ago, i never got an email or piece of mail from them. Tried to log into their site and the password they gave me doesn’t work. I keep trying to call during their office hours and get a recording that they will call me back which never happens. I guess Blue Cross and Blue Sheild has changed their name to Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Sheild however none of the sites get me to participating doctors and show my plan that I am enrolled with. Insurance companies are the biggest criminals and thanks to the obama plan we are forced to participate. America is the biggest joke not providing Americans insurance and education instead of fighting the worlds battles.
Below zero stars– yuck

This website is badly broken:
PERFORMANCE
— Log-​in takes 30 seconds
— Latency on the home page, even in the middle of a logged-​in session, is about 20 seconds
— Search altogether fails due to unexplained «technical difficulties»
— Latency in search is about 10 seconds
— Automatically logs you out after 15 minutes
SEARCH FUNCTIONALITY
— Geographic search parameters are gross-​grained; 713 doctors turned up on the narrowest radius (2 miles)
— Search doesn’t sort along the parameters it claims to
— Search results incorrectly claim that certain doctors accept Empire
— Doctor-​quality data are extremely thin
MESSAGING
— Soft copies of paper letters I have received are nowhere to be found, even in the inbox
— Messages in the inbox simply fail to load
— Attachments sent by Empire staff are empty, due either to technical bugs or human error
— Email replies by Empire staff are useless
— Empire staff have perplexing titles, such as «Customer Service Advocate.» I suppose such a person who advocate for customer service. But what I need, instead, is for the person to provide customer service
PAYMENT
— The pay flow requires separate log-​in, and that log-​in breaks easily
— The pay flow dishonestly claims to be able to set up automatic billing
— Auto-​pay must be set-​up by paper form and is only by ACH
— Etc.
DESIGN
— There is auto-​play animation

terrible customer service. my plan was cancelled A MONTH AFTER I SIGNED UP due to lack of payment. I was opted in to an almost $ 500 plan, went online to change it to a cheaper plan but kept getting bills for the same plan. I won’t even go into what a nightmare it is to talk to someone, much less use their website which was constantly having server issues do to lots of enrollment. Long story short, they never got the change. meanwhile i’m going to the doctor the whole month of february not realizing i had no coverage! now i have lots of bills i have to pay out of pocket. when i called them up asking for advice? «sorry, we can’t help you. and you can’t apply for insurance until next year» WOW, THANKS FOR MAKING THIS SUCH AN AMAZING EXPERIENCE.

I pay $ 427/​month and the automated answering service doesn’t recognize my member ID# when I try to call, of course. They are also trying to charge me for something that is included in my plan automatically. Do not buy this insurance.

What a joke! Empire cancelled my insurance due to lack of payment, although I never received a bill. Isn’t it their responsibility to send a bill? I’m a 2 time cancer survivor who depends on a daily regimen of (expensive) meds and the last thing I need right now is this kind of crap.
I should have been forewarned by how unbelievably inefficient the sign-​up process was. After going through all the steps and forms, they repeatedly got it wrong and made me go through the same steps over and over.
I wish I had read the Unilocal reviews first. Not a single one of them gives Empire more than one star and many of them say that is only because you can’t give less stars than one… I fully agree and understand.
By the way, I’ve been writing this while on hold trying to speak to someone at Empire. After 45 minutes of being re-​routed, the idiot operator put me back in the queue I started in.
DON’T WASTE YOUR TIME AND MONEY. EMPIRE SUCKS.

Do not sign up for Empire BCBS. Seriously, don’t. I wish I could give zero stars.
I signed up on the state exchange like a good consumer, such as they allowed. Without being a member, you can’t sign on to their site and check if a doctor takes your plan, only if s/​he takes any Empire plan.
So I signed up for Empire because all my doctors were in network. Now it turns out NONE of them take the exchange plans. I’m stuck paying $ 500+ a month for useless coverage.
Don’t sign up for Empire, really don’t. THEY LIE.

6÷28÷2014
Can I do negative stars? Being on this insurance has been the most dehumanizing experience of my life. They don’t cover anything and I’ve yet to find a doctor that accepts them. I’m on a low budget plan but my deductibles are crazy. Customer service asks me more questions about my plan than I ask them. I’m in more medical debt than ever and my type 1 diabetes complications are running rampant.
Pro tip– the number on the card to call for help brings you to people who read answers off a sheet of paper. Apparently, you have SPECIFICALLY ASK for a «LICENSED REPRESENTATIVE» to answer any real questions. I always asked for a manager which is apparenlty not the same and it brings you to someone else who just reads answers off a sheet of paper. When i recently actually spoke to a LICENSED REPRESENTATIVE he scolded me for never asking for one. I just called the number on the card dude, how come no one ever passed me along to someone who could actually give me answers?

This company is the biggest joke. If you are thinking of becoming a blue cross HMO member– you should think again. They have done nothing correctly. The sign up process should have been my warning to stay clear of this nonsense — so called health insurer.
They lost my application 2x, so I had to do a 3^rd application.
I did this on the phone/​online with a rep. To make sure this one didn’t disappear.
I enrolled in their best plan-‘platinum’.
What a joke that is!
I went with the platinum because my doc was in network.
I visited 3 doctors in January. All in network.
Well– jan. 27 my docs dropped blue cross.
This problem is between the dr. s/​& the insurance.
WRONG– I got stuck with 3x, $ 300 bills. 900 $ total — that’s great since I’m insured.‘
I was very disappointed to have signed up for this platinum plan — just to have all my doctors drop it within the first 30 days.
Blue cross then assigned me a new primary doctor.
I wasn’t very happy– but was in need of medical care with a broken foot.
Unfortunately, the doctor — That They Assigned to me — dropped blue cross also.
Which left me looking for another primary doctor.
I went online, and tried finding a new primary doctor. I called five different doctors that says are in network.
None of them were seeing new patients.
I wound up in a crappy Medicaid clinic waiting 4 hours– even with an appointment.
All and all, I had 5 primary doctors in the first 5 months if 2014.
After making a complaint to ny state, their rebuttal was that I am wrong. That all the doctors I called are in network.
LIES. !!!/​BS!
I’ve never encountered such an unprofessional company.
I have made the sad decision to cancel my enrollment and go back to being uninsured.
I don’t want to dive into their billing practices — because then I’ll get really nasty.
All and all this was the biggest waste of time and money.
If I could give them a neg. 5 star rating.
I would do so.
Black mold is more helpful to my health than this SCAM.
Do yourself a favor and stay clear of these crooks!

My specialists have dropped Blue Cross …
I wish I had switched before the deadline, now I am stuck with them the rest of the year!
Not only that, they upped my co-​pays 50%!!
I will definitely remember to switch out next year!

Wednesday January 15^th I was denied a much needed preventive procedure because of dysfunction and incompetence of Empire Blue Cross customer service. All I needed was for Empire Blue Cross to grant a one-​time referral for the procedure. This should have taken 15 minutes maximum including hold time. Instead myself and multiple office assistant at the clinic and at the physician’s office spent five non-​stop hours on the phone on separate lines getting the wrong information, constantly transferred to the wrong department, confused by a terrible automated system, and hung up on repeatedly and simply unable to get an answer from Blue Cross
We finally gave up exasperated. I lost two days of work in preparation for the procedure, fasted, bought over the counter drugs, traveled for hours, and left untreated, sick to my stomach literally and emotionally. This is unconscionable and has no place in the world of medical care. I had secured referrals from all parties, but Empire Blue decides the referral I got from my general physician in 2013 was invalid since he is no longer in the network of the new plan for 2014. Why doesn’t Empire Blue have the decency to honor the referrals and procedure established by THEIR in network physicians despite THEIR change in my plans? Why was I told about this this morning by the Dr’s office on way to the procedure.
To make matters worse I lose insurance coverage for a good general physician of 20 years. So in the end Empire Blue Cross takes my money, doesn’t provide basic customer service to enable critical medical procedures, potentially seriously compromises my health, and ushers in a year with less access to health care with twice the deductible amount than last year. This company is terrifying.

I enrolled almost 3 months ago now. Haven’t received a bill and going on 7 hrs I’ve waited on hold over the last week trying to pay my enrollment. I’ve lost my old insurance and exceeding my minutes on my phone. #empirebluesucks

Blue Cross Blue Shield SUCKS. Why are there so many doctors who specifically refuse to take Blue Cross? It’s especially hard to find ob/​gyns (for my wife, obviously) who will take Blue Cross. They’ll take every other insurance, some even Medicare, but NOT Blue Cross! What the heck are you doing to piss off all these doctors?
Plus, it sucks that you won’t cover some drugs that other insurance companies do cover.
I’m trying REALLY hard to get my company off of Blue Cross onto a better insurance company.