Conference call keeping you updated on health insurance woes

Lorne MacDonald and his wife, Beth finally get to talk to a United Healthcare executive about the problems their Falcon Physical Therapy practice is facing since United took over the contract in April for thousands of military and their dependents, medical care.

I set up a conference call meeting between them and Mike Ile. Ile is Senior Vice President of Network Management for United Healthcare Military and Veterans. The MacDonalds and others providers have gotten slow to no patient referrals. Lorne MacDonald told Ile, “I want to know where are my patients. We are in the business of taking care of patients and they are out there, but we’re not seeing them.” Ile responded, “As of now, we are completely without referral inventory. The inventory has been going down for the month of May and we are now current.” Macdonald responded, “What happened to the backlog? Where did they go? Who did they get sent to? ” Isle didn’t directly respond, other than to add he will look into it.

MacDonald is a former Army paratrooper who was stationed at Fort Carson and said during the conversation, “I’m an advocate for my soldiers. They are mine and that who I am and I’m not letting up on this till it gets fixed.” Mike Isle responded with, “You and I agree on that. I won’t either. We want the beneficiaries to get the care the need and we will work with you till we can do that.”

Since United Healthcare has taken over the military health contract, Falcon Physical Therapy has had to lay off four people because of the loss of referrals. Lorne and his wife Beth told me they hope to have more meetings with United to get answers to this dilemma.