49 My Battle to Make the Health Insurers Obey the Law Part 8: 12 October 2024
This Table summarises the
correspondence I sent to HCF from 1 to 21 February 2022. In February 2022, HCF continued its policy of
not communicating with me in any way, but I refused to go away.
|
Letter Details |
Length of Correspondence |
How Sent |
Date of Response |
Length of Response |
What Did Response
Say? |
|
Letter dated 4 February 2022 addressed to Junita Lindsay, Complaints
Resolution Officer |
1 page |
Email to jlindsay@hcf.com.au sent at 10:29 am on 4 February 2022 |
No reply ever received |
Zero length |
No reply ever received |
|
Claim documents seeking
payment for Margaret’s Lift treatment provided on 18 January 2022 |
3 pages |
Attached to email to jlindsay@hcf.com.au sent at 10:29 am on 4 February 2022 |
No reply ever received |
Zero length |
No reply ever received |
|
Letter
dated 7 February 2022 addressed to Junita Lindsay, Complaints Resolution
Officer |
6
pages, |
Email
to jlindsay@hcf.com.au sent at 5:27 pm on 12 January 2022 |
No
reply ever received |
Zero
length |
No
reply ever received |
|
Claim
documents seeking payment for Margaret’s Lift treatment provided on 23
December 2021 |
3
pages |
Attached
to email to jlindsay@hcf.com.au sent at 5:27 pm on 12 January 2022 |
No
reply ever received |
Zero
length |
No
reply ever received |
|
Claim
documents seeking payment for Margaret’s Lift treatment provided on 7 January
2022 |
3
pages |
Attached
to email to jlindsay@hcf.com.au sent at 5:27 pm on 12 January 2022 |
No
reply ever received |
Zero
length |
No
reply ever received |
|
Letter
dated 12 February 2022 addressed to Junita Lindsay, Complaints Resolution
Officer |
5
pages |
Email
to jlindsay@hcf.com.au sent at 12:55 pm on
Saturday 12 February 2022 |
No
reply ever received |
Zero
length |
No
reply ever received |
|
Claim
documents seeking payment for Margaret’s Lift treatment provided on 25
January 202 |
3
pages |
Attached
to email to jlindsay@hcf.com.au sent at 12:55 pm on
Saturday 12 February 2022 |
No
reply ever received |
Zero
length |
No
reply ever received |
|
Email
dated 13 February 2022 |
2
line email, plus |
Email
to jlindsay@hcf.com.au sent at 1:23 pm on
Sunday 13 February 2022 |
No
reply ever received |
Zero
length |
No
reply ever received |
|
Replacement
for page 2 of letter dated 12 February 2022 |
1
page |
Attached
to email to jlindsay@hcf.com.au sent at 1:23 pm on
Sunday 13 February 2022 |
No
reply ever received |
Zero
length |
No
reply ever received |
*****
My HCF letter dated 4 February 2022 was a means of
ensuring I could prove HCF had received our claim for Margaret’s 18 January
2022 Lift treatment. I expected this
letter to be ignored and it was.
*****
My HCF letter of 7 February 2022 was prompted by
what I learned at a patient support meeting held on Sunday 6 February. On 7 February, I formally complained that HCF
had placed a computer “block” on processing any claims for services provided by
Lift Cancer Care Services. This was a
serious but completely true charge – so HCF ignored it.
|
… the HCF computer “block” on the processing in
any way of claims for services provided by Lift, is the result of a very
precise instruction given at the very highest level within HCF. I have not the slightest doubt that this
instruction is illegal and a serious breach of the relevant private health
insurance legislation. I believe that
no health insurance company has the lawful ability to refuse to process
claims for payments made under a policy of private health insurance. I believe that the law requires all claims
be accepted for processing and those claims must be either specifically
accepted or specifically rejected in accordance with the relevant regulations
governing the specific service for which the claim has been made. The “block” on the processing of claims
involving services provided by Lift has two obvious - and odious -
effects. In the first place, it
prevents HCF staff from “mistakenly” approving claims that the law actually requires
to be approved. In the second place –
and this is probably the more significant underlying reason for the “block” –
it places HCF in the position where it is able to claim that it has not
rejected any claims for services provided by Lift. This “magical” result is produced not
because HCF has decided to obey the law, but because it has come up with what
Baldrick from “Blackadder” would have called a “cunning plan”. Like all of Baldrick’s “cunning plans”,
this latest move by HCF is an extremely bad idea. It will not work and it is certainly
unlawful. |
|
Given that I was not
the only recipient of this email (or emails that were virtually identical to
it) it is clear that HCF has embarked on a deliberate policy of trying to
induce cancer patients to falsely claim that they were misled by Lift
regarding the likely cost of the treatment provided by Lift. I know for a fact that in none of my
correspondence to HCF did I ever suggest that I was “misled” in any way by
Lift about the likely cost of the services.
This allegation has been invented by HCF and peddled to extremely
vulnerable people in an attempt to “persuade” them to accept money that they
have always been entitled to receive – but at the price of slandering the
very service provider that has at all times tried to help them deal with life
threatening illnesses. The words
“vile” and “odious” spring to mind.
They are appropriate words to describe this particular conduct by HCF. |
Expressing these concerns in the letter meant that HCF could not claim senior executives were unaware their company was doing this.
I correctly assumed HCF would ignore this letter.
I believed it likely that Junita Lindsay was no more than a mouthpiece for more senior officers. so I addressed this part of the letter to:
|
Principal Baldrick, Lesser Baldricks and Equally Ridiculous Other
Baldricks |
At HCF. In Blackadder, Baldrick was the servant of Edmund Blackadder and often had “cunning plans” - all of which were rubbish. Baldrick also had filthy hygiene.
Baldrick was a stupid, dirty idiot. I therefore tried to talk directly to the Baldricks at HCF who made the important decisions.
|
If you ever get around to watching the tv series
from which I have adopted your names, you might become aware that your
original namesake on Blackadder was a complete idiot. I am forced to conclude that like the original
Baldrick, you too are (to adapt a saying from Winnie the Pooh) “people of
very few brains. … I look forward to receiving yet another non
reply from the Baldricks at HCF, sent under the pseudonym of the work email
address for Junita Lindsay. |
*****
The 12 February letter was
addressed to Junita Lindsay, but marked for the attention of “The Relevant HCF Baldrick”.
This time, I tried to speak directly to those above Junita Lindsay and say they were idiots, although I still had no idea who the “Relevant Baldrick” might be. I later learnt the Relevant Baldrick was HCF CEO Sheena Jack. My letter finished this way.
|
So now we continue to live in this strange world
where the deadly cancer sitting inside my wife’s body is still there, but
without any treatment except the chemotherapy and radiotherapy which her
doctors in December 2020 thought might give her a few additional
months, plus the exercise medicine provided by Lift. So perhaps Baldrick, you might care to explain
this to me – although I am completely certain that you will not. HCF had no trouble providing insurance
payments for the chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment in December 2020/
January 2021, even though Margaret’s treating doctors made it very clear that
this had no prospect of doing anything except perhaps extend her life by a
few months. HCF pays for treatment
which is in essence, “buying time.”. But the very much cheaper exercise medicine
provided by Lift – which like all of the other treatments is given by
wonderful, caring people – is not something that HCF will accept as an
acceptable medical treatment. Strangely
though, the treatment rejected by HCF seems to have worked. Dear Baldrick, is HCF seriously asserting
it will not comply with its legal obligations to assist in paying for medical
care because it rejects a specific medical treatment which seems to have
worked? … Why Baldrick, do you reject treatment that seems
to work where patients have been given an imminent and completely certain
death sentence? |
****
This is Margaret, the
woman who HCF thought should die so long as it did not have to obey the law, on
Friday 12 August 2016 IN Vancouver with me.
Perhaps HCF thought that we had lived long enough and therefore Margaret’s
life did not matter. This photo was
taken on Friday 2 August 2016.
This photo was taken Friday 2
September 2016 while we were travelling from Vancouver to Seward in Alaska.
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