Insurance companies are supposed to cover COVID-19 tests and any test related to diagnosing COVID-19 as well as any co-pays associated with doctors office and urgent care enter visits under federal law.
But the surprise bills keep on coming.
Congress sought to ensure that patients would not face costs connected to the virus. But rules are not always being followed.
www.nytimes.com
I too got charged a Co-pay for the visit to the Priority Care Center I visited for the test and my Covid test hit my deductible. I'm working on trying to fight it now. It's gone back to be reviewed again.
But based on that NY Times article from last September this is happening a lot. To hundreds of thousands of people.
Insurance companies billing systems are not keeping up with the changes of the law, or have limitations like no out-of-network coverage even though the law says they have to cover the test regardless, their billing systems do not allow for it and need to be individually modified per patient to current after each out-of-network billing situation.
Then there are the insurance companies trying to find the gray areas. Getting out of being fully on the hook and deciding that charge is not related to COVID. This has resulted in people where the Urgent Care center billed the visit separately then the COVID-Test, therefor the insurance companies stick you with the Co-pay. Or in the case of Texas where patients unknowingly also got a STD test done at the same time the COVID-19 test was done at one testing center, for the insurance to not cover the STD test. This also includes fees like a $49 after hours fee one urgent care center was charging, but that same urgent care center would only do covid tests at a designated time in the evening as to not expose other patients to Covid.