Originally Posted by hack

Open enrollment time and subsequent rambling.

Have had a PPO (Cigna) for the past 10 years and really liked it, great coverage minimal costs for emergency and hospital related items. I changed jobs this past year and picked up their PPO (Anthem Blue Cross), had a bike crash with ER visit, and left with a hefty bill. Not too thrilled about that. As a result, I'm considering going over to Kaiser, but like the freedom of being able to go where I want, when I want (I guess that comes at a new price with this new provider). I think I'll have to work on the assumption that a bike incident and ER visit is likely and the cost savings from Kaiser would be helpful.

I guess an alternative would be supplemental coverage. I've had it in the past, never used it, and cancelled it. I've heard/read some less than stellar stories about the lack of payment once you actually have an incident though.

Originally Posted by himespau

Last year our university apparently changed administrators of our health plan (big enough that we're self-insured). I didn't go to open enroll because I'd been happy the year before so I was shocked to get cards with new provider on them (went from human to BC/BS). Apparently, nothing about what was in network changed (at least that's what HR told us), but we've been hit by lots of surprise out of network charges for labs and stuff this year, which makes me scared as we expect a new baby in 4 weeks or so. It wasn't special stuff either, just routine tests being sent out to the normal lab were now out of network. Never had that happen before, so you can bet I'm going to the enrollment this year and going to very carefully look over my options (which are minimal).