I am your constituent and we all deserve a health care system that works for all of us. I just learned that health insurance companies often maintain inaccurate listings of in-network providers. There are so many errors that these are called Ghost Networks. We the consumers are lured into purchasing their health insurance with the goal of having access to those providers. It is a disaster when they are not available. Senator Ron Wyden and the staff of the Senate Finance Committee conducted a study recently that found systematically checking the directories of 12 insurance providers in 6 states they were only able to make appointments 18% of the time because 1/3 of the providers were unavailable due to inaccuracies and unresponsiveness.
Look, this kind of thing is out of bounds with universal healthcare, but we need help now. I want you to build legislation that demands that health insurance companies maintain accurate lists of in-network providers and has penalties if they don’t. Perhaps you could start with a letter to Javier Becerra, the secretary of HHS and Chiquita Brooks - LaSure, Head of CMS, to find out what they can do to address the problem for plans over which the federal government has oversight. Thank you.
