150 –Keeping Margaret Alive, Part 1: 18 January 2025

Our health insurer HCF completely ignored the government approval of Lift Cancer Care Services as a hospital.

HCF had its own list of the hospitals it would recognise.

If HCF did not “recognise” a hospital, HCF ignored claims for services provided by that hospital.

The health insurers were contemptible bastards, as were the Australian Health Department and the Commonwealth Ombudsman who permitted them to ignore the law

****

This photo shows was our complete list of guests on Christmas Day 25 December 2021.  The Cancellation Crew rigidly enforced our exclusion from “civilised” society. 

Margaret was dying but she deserved no sympathy because she had married me.

****

In previous blogs, I have already recounted details of my unrelenting battle to force the health insurers to obey the law.  There is no need for me to repeat that story.

****

Although she had been so close to death at the start of December 2021, Margaret did receive two treatment from Lift Cancer Care in December 2021.  This Table tells the story of the contempt displayed by HCF when I claimed these treatments under our health insurance.

Date of Clam (December 2021)	Claim Paid or Unpaid?	Notification to Us?
17 December*	No	Yes
23 December**	No	No

* Submitted through the HCF online portal on 27 December 2021

** Submitted through the HCF online portal on 7 January 2022 and also by letter dated 27 January 2022 to Junita Lindsay, HCF Complaint Resolution Officer

****

The claim for Margaret’s Lift treatment on 17 December was remarkable only because it was one of the very few Lift Cancer Care claims where HCF actually told us it had rejected the claim.  A HCF letter dated 6 January 2022 said this.

 

Dear Mr Hankin Thank you for your recent claim. We wish to advise a gap benefit for medical services are [sic] payable only when associated with treatment as a hospital in-patient. As the services presented were not provided during a period of hospitalisation, we regret there is no benefit payable. Should you require further assistance with your membership please do hesitate to contact our Member Information line on 13 13 34. Your sincerely The HCF Team

 

****

When you run a business as large as HCF, mistakes are inevitable and sending this letter had obviously been a mistake because it did not obey the HCF order that all claims for treatments by Lift Cancer Care were to be completely ignored – they were not to be registered in the system in any way, they were not to be rejected and they were not to be accepted.

HCF did not think it was a mistake to reject the claim even though the law undoubtedly required it to pay the claim.  From the HCF perspective, the mistake was that HCF had told me in writing that it had rejected the claim and put forward a clearly invented reason for the rejection.

HCF never made this mistake again.  A warning must have been given to the employee who sent the letter. 

The HCF policy was to make sure that Lift Cancer Care claims “disappeared”.  If claims for Lift treatments were officially rejected, then at least in theory, HCF might be required by the Health Department and/ or the Ombudsman to set out the legal justification for the rejection.  Because there was no lawful reason to reject the claims, HCF could not give any legal justification for the rejections.

In practice, HCF had no real need for concern when claims were actually rejected.  Neither the Health Department nor the Ombudsman had any interest in doing the jobs that they were supposed to do.

Legally speaking, the best way for HCF to ignore the law was to make claims for treatments by Lift Cancer Care – and probably claims for treatments by other health providers as well – simply “disappear”. 

If claims “disappeared”, the cancer patient getting the treatment from Lift Cancer Care might forget having ever made the claim.  Legally speaking, this also gave an obvious legal advantage to HCF.  If by some fluke the Health Department or the Ombudsman asked why a claim had not been paid, HCF could simply claim it had no record of the claim – “What claim?  We never got any such claim!”

Legally speaking, the claimed reason for rejection of the claim for Margaret’s treatment on 17 December 2021 was complete rubbish. 

To the knowledge of HCF, Lift Cancer Care Services was an officially approved hospital and Margaret had received her treatment while she was an “in-patient” at the hospital called Lift Cancer Care Services. 

The HCF letter mistakenly sent to us in fact revealed the real reason why HCF had been refusing to pay the claims for Lift treatments.

****

HCF had decided to completely ignore the government approval of Lift as a hospital.  HCF had decided it and not the government would decide whether health service providers would be recognised as hospitals.  If HCF did not “recognise” the hospital as a hospital, HCF would ignore the legal rules that required it to pay claims for services provided by that hospital.

****

I have no doubt in my mind that the decision makers at HCF responsible for the disgusting treatment of claims made for treatments provided by Lift Cancer Care Services committed a large array of crimes.

To this day, neither the Australian Health Department nor the Commonwealth Ombudsman have shown the slightest interest in investigating these crimes.

I draw the inevitable conclusion that the crimes committed by HCF were committed with the knowledge and agreement of the Australian Health Department and the Commonwealth Ombudsman.