Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Blog No.189 - Dealing With HCF in July 2022, Part 6: 25 February 2025

 

****

Tim Tams are a big hit everywhere – and Margaret’s Fraudulent friends loved them.  This photo shows Margaret having fun by pretending to be a Customs Officer confiscating the Tim Tams.

****



This photo shows Anne Ryan pretending to be in love with my former friend Nes Fernandez.  She dropped Nes once she persuaded him to stop walking with me.  She also persuaded Nes to cancel me when Margaret was dying from cancer.  Nes refused to come to Margaret’s funeral.

****

Evil has the ability to pretend to be something else.

****

You may have missed it in the sea of detail, but in Blog 184, I recounted how HCF agreed in writing to pay ALL unpaid Lift claims dating back to 2018.  Yes, that is correct.  HCF had refused to obey the law for a continuous period of four years.  After I exerted extreme pressure on HCF, it finally agreed to pay all claims it received in the future – and it also agreed to pay all claims it should have already paid over the previous four years.

Then HCF changed its mind – or perhaps it had never really intended to pay the unpaid past claims in the first place.

****

This is the sequence of events.

On the 24th of June 2022, Lift advised HCF in writing it had received payment for outstanding claims covering September 2021 to November 2021.  Lift asked what had happened to the promised payments for all of the other claims – the claims dating back to 2018.

This prompted HCF to revert to its habit of ignoring the law.

****

On 24 June 2022, Andrea Caton from HCF sent this email to Lift.

Dear Ms Whiting

HCF do not hold any records related to rejected claims, to facilitate payment LIFT must re-submit claims in paper form by post to the address below.


Regards

Andrea

Curled up inside this little gem of an email is confirmation by HCF that it never processed the claims for services by Lift.  The Lift claims were neither accepted nor rejected.  They were ignored and the paperwork destroyed.

I am confident that the HCF refusal to either accept or reject claims was a crime.

****

HCF made its position explicit in another email sent to Lift on 27 June 2022.

Dear Ms Whiting


As explained in my previous emails and correspondence, please note:

  • HCF is willing to pay for care provided by Lift since 2018

  • HCF rejected claims submitted by Lift during the dispute timeline

  • HCF paid all claims recorded on our claims system, as per remittances received by LIFT last week.

  • If LIFT would like HCF to pay any benefits related to services provided between 2018 and 2021 LIFT must submit a paper claim to the address provided;

  • If LIFT has previously submitted a claim for services rendered between 2018 and 2021 the only way for HCF to pay a benefit is for LIFT to submit a paper claim.*

  • From the date of settlement LIFT can submit claims via ECLIPSE


Regards


Andrea


*I have inserted the bold and the red font but the underlining was in the original HCF email



****

Stripped of the Bulls**t, HCF refused to pay for any past claims unless Lift resubmitted each and every unpaid claim all over again – and did so in paper format and sent the claims by ordinary mail.  HCF demanded Lift perform what HCF knew would be a logistical nightmare.  HCF demanded that Lift resubmit each and every unpaid claim all over again – using hours of employee time – so that HCF could once again, engage in Masterly Inactivity.

It was this piece of Bulls**t that prompted my 8th of July 2022 letter to Mark Johnson.

****

My letter to Mark Johnson finally persuaded HCF to obey the law.

****

I got a short email from Mark Johnson on 9 July 2022 “Acknowledging receipt of your letter of 7 July 2022”.  [Mark Johnson got the date of my letter wrong.]

****

On the 1st of August 2022, I got another email from Mark Johnson.  This email enclosed a letter from Mark Johnson dated 29th of July 2022.  This is Mark Johnson’s 29th of July 2022 letter.

Dear Mr Hankin

Re: Lift Cancer Care Services

I refer to your letter dated 8 July 2022. We understand that Margaret continues to face health challenges and our thoughts are with you both.

HCF had advised Lift in our correspondence in June to submit claims for services directly to HCF, so our members would not be impacted. The billing of members for current services is at Lift’s discretion. We are disappointed this has continued, and we understand it has caused considerable inconvenience for you. 

The payment of current or historical claims is now an operational matter. In order to expedite these issues HCF has an agreement with Lift regarding payment. As a result of this agreement any direct billing of members by Lift should cease. 

HCF strongly denies all of the allegations you have made in your letter. We cannot respond to the matters in your letter as they relate to operational matters between Lift and HCF which have now been resolved. We would of course be happy to correspond with you on matters relating to your HCF health insurance policy. 


Regards 

Mark G. Johnson 

HCF Chairman

The letter was certainly written in bulls**t legal language because the lawyers insisted on this, but it did signal HCF had finally decided to obey the law.  HCF and Teachers Health now finally paid the insurance claims they had previously refused to pay.  NIB had decided to obey the law in April 2022.  My war with the health insurers was finally at an end.

****

I had finally succeeded without any help at all from any of the government agencies that were supposed to enforce the law.  Every relevant government agency had refused to enforce the law and I am convinced that corruption played a key role in the refusal of the Health Department and the Commonwealth Ombudsman to do their duty.

****

The struggle with the health insurers was replaced by a much grimmer struggle.  Margaret’s health suddenly declined dramatically.  Her right kidney stopped working because the cancer had blocked her digestive system.  Her kidney function was restored only by insertion of a stent.

****

No matter what I did, I could not stop Margaret’s steady drift towards death.  It was as if I forced the insurers to obey the law and the universe had then said “Thank you, Margaret can die now”.

But I did not do what I did just for Margaret.  I wanted to make sure that all other patients at Lift could get the treatment that their doctors wanted them to get and that their health insurance entitled them to receive.


No comments:

Post a Comment

Blog No. 198 - Camino Soul Songs Part 8: 9 March 2025

On the 21st of April 2013, I walked Villatuerta Puente to Azofra, a distance of about 21 kilometres.  By now, my body seemed to have accepte...