United Health Care ..EZ Claim Pay

[ocean]

Received a letter yesterday about this new program where they pay the Medicare part B expenses until you have reached your deductible, directly to providers, of course they want your checking information so they can recoup what they paid, sounds like another way to simplify one's life going forward...any opinions on this program

[samsoes]

Generally speaking, if you give them your checking account information you lose control in the event of a billing error and have to fight to get the erroneously billed amount back. It's better to be in control of outflows so as not to pay amounts billed in error.

[Vinny_in_NJ]

I just went to a doctor that wanted my Part B deductible upfront so whatever UHC is doing won't work with all doctors. I agree to just keep it as is and you be in control of the deductible part.

[Dave5280]

We were on it and didn’t like it and dropped it. The processing is too slow and the notifications weren’t informative enough. It’s a great concept that has been poorly designed and implemented.

I wouldn’t recommend it.

[IowaFarmBoy]

We're giving EZ Claim Pay a try- didn't see this thread before signing up- it sounds nice, we'll see how it actually works.

My question is whether drafts and payments show up on their website anywhere. So far, we've gotten paper letters in advance of billing (two bills) and they successfully drafted our account for the payments in the last week. No notice yet that they have sent the payments to the provider but it's only been a few days and I assume they want to wait a few days to make sure payments clear, etc. So, is there any way to know on their side that payment has been sent?

[gasman999]

I had a horrible experience with United Health Care's provider payment system a couple of years ago. When I received notice that a new claim had processed for an ophthalmologist visit and went to the UHC website to view it there was a flashing "pay your balance now!" button. I thought, great, why wait for the practice to bill me when I could just get it out of the way right now. It turned out that the practice was a large multiple city group with separate billing locations and staffing (of varying degrees of competence). My payment went to different city. It took months of embarrasing and borderline harassing phone calls, emails, letters to straighten out. To top it off UHC refused to simply call the practice on my behalf.

Proceed with caution. While I think as much of the blame lies with the practice as UHC this smells of just another way for the insurance company to skim a few bucks off of providers via transaction charges.

[Scubagolf]

IowaFarmBoy -- There is no information on the account page at UHC.com. I spoke with a "representative" today, who at least knew what EZ Claim Pay is, but he could only run to his superior and determine (1) there is nothing on the account page related to EZ Claim Pay, and (2) the only contact to you/me/insureds is the letters we are receiving, and (3) you can call the phone number to confirm that payment has been made.

There is a delay in the deductible amounts being made to the providers and I am getting requests for payment. This is a hassle. My 2025 Part B deductible is now paid, but I am not going to use EZ Claim Pay in the future.

[IowaFarmBoy]

IowaFarmBoy -- There is no information on the account page at UHC.com. I spoke with a "representative" today, who at least knew what EZ Claim Pay is, but he could only run to his superior and determine (1) there is nothing on the account page related to EZ Claim Pay, and (2) the only contact to you/me/insureds is the letters we are receiving, and (3) you can call the phone number to confirm that payment has been made.

Thanks for the info. That explains why I couldn't find anything.

An update on our status: We have letters saying they have pulled the money from our checking account and have sent it to the providers. They turned the money around pretty quickly. No bills or statements from the providers yet to confirm it made it to them. So it looks like the process may be working but probably won't know until (if) we get statements from the provider.

[9Iron]

I received info on this the other day. I’m passing on it for now, didn’t see that there was much value in it.

I guess i can always revisit it in the future.