Health Insurance Application Denied.

[mwate009]

Here's our situation. My wife is Russian. I met her here in the US when she was on a student visa. Long story short she went back to Russia to finish her masters degree and we did a long distance relationship, filed the paperwork for a fiancee visa, she came and we got married 3 months ago. I went to add her to my employer health insurance plan and they wanted and extra $190 to cover her. Mine is only $90 and its a very good plan. Apparently it cost more to insure a woman than a man. So we decided to look outside of my employer plan. We found one that was the exact same coverage as my Federal BCBS plan but we found it with Optima for $138. So we applied and they sent out an outside company to do a health screening ie blood pressure, height, weight, and a urine drug test. She failed the drug test because of a very common over the counter medication in Russia called Corvalol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corvalol  which contains Phenobarbital which is a schedule 4 drug here in the US. But she is covered under the 90 day supply FDA import law. I even brought some back for few of my Russian friends that asked me to pick some up when I went to visit her a few times. They use it in Russia for anxiety attacks. It's really no different than alcohol(but try telling that to a Russian and they will argue with you about it) What do we do now since they denied the application? How do we explain it in the best words for the appeal?

[Amir Mostafaie]

Dear mwate009,

You can submit your appeal explaining just the same as you have done in this post. An underwriter (the one who is processing the health insurance application) might consider your reasoning if for example you explain that in Russia this medication is readily used to relief tension before a long flight (which would make sense in her situation)!

On the other hand a more conservative underwriter may be concerned about an applicant who has any history of taking any medication (over the counter or not) for anxiety.

The good news is that you do have the option to add her to your group policy if the application to individual plan doesn't work out.

Keep in mind that by 2014, the individual health insurance market will do away with underwriting and she will be able to get her plan of choice without any underwriting or blood test!

Sincerely,

Amir Mostafaie

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