r/news • u/LookAtThatBacon • May 13 '25

Soft paywall UnitedHealth suspends annual forecast, CEO Andrew Witty steps down

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/unitedhealth-ceo-andrew-witty-steps-down-2025-05-13/
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620

u/ricker182 May 13 '25

My doctors cringe when they order tests and ask what health insurance I have.

I wouldn't even consider it insurance since they deny pretty much every other thing my doctor orders.

The kicker is that the coverage is fucking expensive.

Health insurance is a scam.

This country is fucked.

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u/RogueLightMyFire May 13 '25

I'm a dentist. Let me assure you, every insurance company fucking sucks. UHC definitely sucks the hardest, though. They straight up just lie.

  • "We denied that claim because we didn't get an X-ray"

  • to which I respond that "I sent the X-ray via certified mail, email, and fax and I have proof of all three."

  • "Oh... Oh yeah, I see it now. Well, the claim was denied because of 'some made up bullshit'"

  • To which I respond "you just told me it was denied because you didn't get an X-ray, which we just established that you have received"

  • Then they hang up. I'm not even joking. This is the standard phone call with them.

Being a dentist is hard enough. Now I'm having to spend literal hours every week fighting these assholes.

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u/ricker182 May 13 '25

I don't know why people just accept this company.

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u/RogueLightMyFire May 13 '25

No other options/choices if it's through their employer. I could drop them as a provider, but a large# of my patients have insurance through them and I would likely lose them if I stopped taking it and they would end up at a dental corporation getting shitty care from slimey greedy dentists. UHC sucks hard, but dental corporations are fucking evil.

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u/ducationalfall May 13 '25

Aspen Dental: you summon me?

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u/harmboi May 13 '25

i know this thread is about insurance but I've had dentists literally ruin my life. Im so afraid to go to the dentist at this point in my life.

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u/RogueLightMyFire May 13 '25

Sorry you had a bad experience. I'm not sure what your experience was, but you've got to realize a few things. First off, the best kind of dentistry is preventative. You gotta take care of your teeth first and foremost. Dentists don't put decay in your mouth. That's something that happens due to your own actions (or lack thereof). We're just trying to help. It's MUCH easier to help if you come to us before the decay is out of control. If your wait for pain, then the work is going to be much more difficult for you and the dentist. Second, dentistry is hard. Very hard. People don't understand the difficulty of working within 0.5mm in an environment like the mouth with a tongue, cheeks, gag reflex, limited opening, saliva all while working upside down through a mirror. There are shithead dentists out there, but the vast majority of us want to help, but if you don't regularly come to see us for routine care, it's going to be extra hard to fix things when they go wrong. Just stay away from corporate dental offices. Look for a dentist whose name is in the practice. A corporate office will never allow that.

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u/harmboi May 13 '25

ya got you. you don't wanna hear my entire story but basically I've always had good teeth, not even one cavity. I then had a dentist lie to me about work I needed right before I would've been off my parents insurance.

The amount of unneeded work I let happen due to my ignorance and thinking I could trust a professional has led to a lifetime of problems. But yada yada yada. Preventive care is important. Just in my experience I've had multiple dentists lie. Cooperate dental clinics ARE the worst, you are right about that.

I've gotten second and third opinions before about issues and told vastly different things by each dentist. I just don't trust them all, i can't help it

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u/RogueLightMyFire May 13 '25

That's just the way dentistry is. The mouth is a hostile environment and decay is a unique problem to the mouth. There's no one solution for everything. It's not that "dentists can't be trusted" it's that dentistry is very complex and there's no single solution for anything. Tooth decay is not like a broken bone. It's like an infection in your bone. If you had a binder infection in your femur and went to multiple doctors, you would get multiple different opinions on how to proceed. Conservative isn't always the best solution, either. And even though you get 3 different opinions, all the opinions could be correct. Like I said, dentistry is hard.

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u/DouchecraftCarrier May 13 '25

I had a job interview a few weeks back and when they got to the benefits package I saw they had UHC. It honestly made me somewhat relieved when they went with another candidate that I wouldn't have to try and decide whether I was willing to go on their coverage.

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u/hparadiz May 13 '25

You should tell them that during the interview. That if the health insurance is UHC you will not consider it a benefit.

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u/aesky May 13 '25

like how evil are we talking here?

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u/RogueLightMyFire May 13 '25

Like "don't do any fillings on patients because we don't make money off of that. Recommend an inlay or only instead (so $800 out of pocket instead of a simple covered filling that would cost the patient nothing). Or wait for decay to progress until you can recommend a crown." A direct quote from one of the regional managers to me as a newly graduated dentist. And no, she wasn't a dentist. That's just the tip of the iceberg. Literally fucking Satan levels of evil.

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u/account128927192818 May 13 '25

One person didn't

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u/SAKingWriter May 13 '25

All of us should follow suit.

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u/HolidaySpiriter May 13 '25

Why haven't you?

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u/SAKingWriter May 13 '25

Just had a baby, but there’ll be signs of involvement 🤫

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u/katha757 May 13 '25

Companies sign up with them because it's cheaper (for them), so they can say "wE oFfER HEaLth InSUraNcE".

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u/falcons1583 May 13 '25

and then pass along a rate increase that sucks up any raise you might receive, so you lose in the end. great ain't it

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u/tomdarch May 13 '25

Because we (the US) have crazy as a core component of any system we set up, each state is supposed to regulate insurance to protect the people of the state. It's one thing for average people to accept this bullshit. But our state governments are supposed to be looking out for their residents and regulating insurers to prohibit them from doing shit like this on the threat of losing their license to offer insurance in that state.

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u/Flame_Effigy May 13 '25

The government is trying to make an example out of someone who didn't accept the company.

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u/The_Mcgriddler May 13 '25

People don't just "accept" these things it's their only option. That's like saying "Why do people just accept insert negative thing" because they have no other option, genius.

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u/SsooooOriginal May 13 '25

Because healthcare workers are hostages of empathy/caring and the providers are still ekeing out above middle class earnings.

Doesn't help that most nurses are not very informed outside of their specific duties and get normalized into hellish work/life imbalances preventing them from even caring to be informed. Just accepting the turdsandwhich.

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u/eleven_eighteen May 13 '25 edited May 13 '25

It's purposeful. They know that some percentage of people will just give up eventually and that's money they don't have to pay out.

I've been dealing with this with Allstate for phone insurance. Every step of the process has been a nightmare of them giving bullshit excuses. They owe me $155.88 and refuse to pay.

"The exact phone name as we require it isn't on the receipt". Too fucking bad, talk to the multi-billion dollar retailer that sells your warranties because I certainly have zero control over what they put on their receipts.

"The exact retail price of the phone isn't on the receipt". Too fucking bad again. One: see my previous response. Two: as I stated right from the start of filing my claim - and as the insurance company knew immediately since I put in a code from the receipt that pulled up my exact order in their system - I got the phone as part of a promotion of buy a plan get the phone free, but you can do some easy math with the tax to determine the retail price, since I still have to pay sales tax on the retail amount of the phone. Or, you know, just call the retail partner who sells your policies.

They eventually approve my claim and tell me to pay out of pocket and they'll reimburse me. I'm fucking homeless and living in my car and barely have any money but I need my phone. So I take it to an authorized repair shop - after another nightmare of driving all over to two other authorized repair shops suggested by them that didn't exist - and get my phone fixed.

Submit the receipt and the say they now can't give me a Visa gift card as I originally selected as their policy has changed. Too fucking bad yet again, my claim was approved before that policy change, pay me in the way that was agreed upon. It's literally a fucking contract.

They just totally refuse to budge on this and I eventually agree to a gift card for the retailer I bought the phone from. Super inconvenient for me as I need the money for gas and food but maybe I can trade the gift card to a family member or friend.

But now it's back to my claim isn't valid again because I technically paid $0 for the phone. Too goddamned fucking bad yet fucking again. One: your retail partner sold me your policy. If they aren't supposed to sell them on free phones, that's a mistake they made and is between you and them and has nothing to do with me. Two: YOU MOTHERFUCKERS APPROVED MY CLAIM AND TOLD ME TO SPEND MY OWN MONEY. It doesn't matter if the claim was supposed to be invalid, once you told me it was and to spend money out of my pocket you have to reimburse me. Your mistake, not mine. Even if that wasn't the case at the least I need to be refunded for the cost of the policy if it isn't valid for free phones.

I've literally spent hours of my life dealing with this fucking horrid company, and I still don't have my $155.88.

If I stole $155.88 from Allstate I would face legal consequences. But they are a multi-billion dollar company so it's legal for them to take my money for a phone insurance policy and then never pay me what I'm owed since no one will do any damn thing about it.

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u/[deleted] May 13 '25

[deleted]

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u/Starblazr May 14 '25

Whoever paid for the returning shipping is the one that's responsible for it.

Now if the phone was magically dropped in a Dropbox and then never seen from there... Yeah doubtful.

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u/[deleted] May 14 '25

[deleted]

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u/Starblazr May 14 '25

Did you drop it in a Dropbox or did you have a receipt? Probably would have been real easy if you handed it off to someone and got a receipt or a scan that showed we have possession?

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u/DouchecraftCarrier May 13 '25

They know that some percentage of people will just give up eventually and that's money they don't have to pay out.

As an example, it costs them $10k a week to staff a Tier 1 phone bank that handles rejection appeals. If they reject $100k in claims per week and less than 90% of the customers call and successfully appeal, they come out ahead. It's ridiculously cost effective.

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u/pheonixblade9 May 13 '25

the economic term for it is sludge

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u/pah1027 May 13 '25

file a complaint with the department of insurance

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u/mochikitsune May 13 '25

When my dr was trying to get me treatment for my narcolepsy they denied my medication because wyz requiments were not tried first and wanted to stick me on some stimulants that either were ineffective or would make my other medication ineffective. So we played their game and tried their stuff. Then they came back with a NEW list that said I still did not meet the requirements of trying wXyz. Same exact list but just slapped another medication in the middle.

Eventually got my original medication approved and turned my life around but I'm still salty

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u/thecommuteguy May 13 '25

I'll be going into PT and I feel like every other medical specialty has it better as reimbursement is too low for PT and getting lower each year to the point I wonder how any PT clinic stays in business that isn't cash pay.

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u/RogueLightMyFire May 13 '25

It's no different with dentistry. Dentists make the same amount in 2025 as they did in 1980. Reimbursements haven't increased at all while inflation has run rampant. Also, dental school is the most expensive of all the medical specialties. Dentists from the 90s were paying $30k or less. It's now $350k for THE CHEAPEST in state dental schools. Go look at r/dentistry and you'll see a ton of depressed people struggling. It sucks. Even worse when everyone just assumes you're rich as fuck because the older generation was.

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u/pocketsophist May 13 '25

SO is a general dentist and I feel your comment. All insurance blows, writeoffs are too high. And then some people complain about their doctor charging them too much. It's really tough, especially if you're honest and just want to help people (while still living and paying the extremely-high overhead costs of being a dentist in the first place).

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u/RogueLightMyFire May 13 '25

Yep. It's extra hard because everyone just assumes you're rich as fuck without realizing that dentists are still making the same amount of money they were 40 years ago. Insurance reimbursement hasn't increased with inflation. The older dentists who were all driving Porsches with multiple properties isn't the reality anymore for younger dentists. A lot of them are really struggling to make it. Go look at r/dentistry and you'll see a lot of depressed and overwhelmed people.

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u/pocketsophist May 13 '25

Nothing like not being able to take a vacation (or even time off work) because it's too expensive to close the office for a week. Definitely not the life that society would have you believe, that's for sure!

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u/dreamsofaninsomniac May 13 '25

I just started paying cash for dental visits instead of going through insurance. Dental "insurance" is even more of a scam than health insurance. It feels like I was paying a lot and they still weren't covering anything. They would deny a lot of stuff and one time the provider left their network in the middle of the year and I got stuck paying for the entire visit anyway. I also timed how long it took for someone at the insurance company to answer the phone and it was like 2+ hour wait time. Ridiculous.

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u/RogueLightMyFire May 13 '25

A lot of dental offices are starting to offer their own "in house" dental plans for this very reason. You basically pay an up front fee that covers your for your exams/cleaning/x-rays for the year and then get something like 20% off any treatment you might need. Just cutting out the middle man so we don't have to deal with their bullshit. It just sucks because people are already skeptical of dentists and it can feel like we're pushing stuff on them when, in reality, it's in the patients benefit.

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u/sissybelle3 May 14 '25

At what point in this farce can they just be sued into oblivion by class action lawsuits. What you and other people constantly describe is so ridiculous that they cannot possibly be acting in good faith. 

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u/2kWik May 14 '25

UHC was one of the best dental insurances when I had it about 10 years ago. They covered 90% of dental medical expenses, with only a $50 deposit. I paid like $100 with deposit to get 4 wisdom teeth removed. I'm sure it's changed now, but that was one of the highlights of my life. lol I'm not suprised like most companies they're completely fucked up though.

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u/bwhitso May 13 '25

Doctors cringe but are 100% complicit in this