Health insurance, FEHB Gov employees?

[Joey G]

6 hours ago, Bobm said:

I am referring to BCBS from the states for FEHB Gov employees. I apologize if the topic is from 2018 but this is an important issue which in my case needs researching.  

Keep in mind... IF you drop your FEHB insurance during retirement... you can NEVER get it back.... consider that for the future.

[Nickleback99]

I have GEHA  (somehow they now fall under an Aetna contract?) as retired Fed and they will reimburse me after the fact, at the In Plan rate and no referral to specialist of pre-approval needed. Just talked to them the other day to confirm that as I'm about to incur a sizable bill at St Lukes due to some hidden heart issue I did not know I had and in fact got all checked out last June and was almost perfect; so, something fairly instant has happened, be it caused by Vax (absolutely worthless!) , Covid Omicron last spring or some genetic thing or maxing out heart in our gym (which still would probably need and underlying cause). I do extreme 2 hour workouts down in Dauin 3x per week and had some recent response hours afterwards (felt Great in the workout, never an issue), that they are still trying figure out. Anyway, already got some tests at Silliman and ACE in Dumaguete, that indicated an issue, but then same tests here at St Lukes were contrary for most significant parts....that was $900 St Lukes.  I'd say prices here St Lukes are about 2x that of Dumaguete for same tests. So, Angiogram this Thursday to see if can figure anything out and we'll go from there, and figure about $1500 for that. Yeah, we're about to find out how good that coverage is, but was good in past in Japan. Wish I had Blue Cross at this point, as they can/will apparently bill them directly. St Lukes did send message to GEHA to confirm they'll at least guarantee payment, which if done, will let me walk out the door and pay afterwards apparently. Either way, still affordable if pay up front.

[Nickleback99]

Well, to add to my confusion, all the tests were mostly good at St Lukes, which totally contradicted what I was told at Silliman.  The SL Interventional Cardiologist here says there is No left ventricle failure and all the heart chambers, etc are working fine, ejection rate is solid and no blockages.  But (BIG BUT!) , from angiogram, he said he identified formation of an aneurysm on a bend in the left clavicle artery that needs to be monitored every 6 months and just meds for now; so, you can bet your booty I'm going back to US soon to get a really good cardiologist to go over all of this determine what's actually what and get off of this medical roller coaster here. It's maddening.  Adding more confusion , I sent the images to a doc close to me in US who's an interventional radiologist at one point and he said he does Not see the aneurysm anywhere on the images.    Lastly, I had to pay out of pocket to "get out" and will file my own claim with GEHA shortly.  That said, the entire staff at St Luke's was very professional and kind during the whole thing.