My husbands suicide shows theres something very wrong with US insurance industry

If you want to direct blame, depression robbed all three of them of their future together, and their insurance allowed depression to progress until fatal.

Hoping for someone to get ahold of themselves in the middle of mental illness is not an expectation grounded in reality.

This is a far cry from the gravity of the post, but here's my personal anecdote about trying to navigate health care and insurance.

A month or two ago, I was trying to set up a pediatric dentist visit for my son. Not a medical emergency, but a matter of some urgency. I spent about three hours on a total of a dozen phone calls or so. Some to the insurer, and some to various dentist offices in the region to inquire about scheduling and logistics. I learned that I needed to switch my son's primary office before he would be eligible to receive care. This could only be done once per month. Fortunately, by luck, this would take effect at the close of business on that very day. Next I needed to find a covered provider. Of course, the insurer could not tell me which ones would have openings at short notice, so I had to call several. Then I learned that in order for a pediatric visit to be covered, it needed a referral from a general dentist. The pediatric office helped me find a dentist who could fill out this paperwork, which felt lucky. I verified that my policy worked with this dentist office. Several hours on the phone, but I had a sense of accomplishment for sorting it all out.

The day of the appointment came. The visit went smoothly. Then I found out that it wouldn't be covered because the insurance will not cover pediatric dentistry above the age of 6, but my son is 7.

I think I'm going to opt out of dental insurance altogether in the next enrollment. All the individual people seemed to be doing their best to help me, but the end result is a system that is impossible for me to use.

>Randy needed immediate psychiatric care, and as an emergency physician I knew the options. We put our trust in the mental health team at a local crisis receiving unit, and they kept Randy overnight in temporary safe housing where he could be observed. By morning they had devised a plan to transfer Randy to a retreat-like inpatient psychiatric facility that was in-network with our insurance. The psychiatrist felt Randy was very high risk, but that he could heal with eight weeks of inpatient treatment. We were told our insurance would cover it.

>But six days into Randy’s eight-week hospital stay, our health insurance company denied any further inpatient care.

>The facility appealed Randy’s case, providing psychiatrist’s notes that clearly outlined his need, but the outcome did not change. Because Randy had no prior history of mental illness, the insurance company determined he shouldn’t need to be hospitalized and stopped paying for his care. A day later Randy was forcibly discharged.

This is definitely a case where the insurance company holds the majority of the blame.

I've seriously considered opting out of health insurance altogether and stuffing away the obscenely priced monthly expense into an interest yielding account. Insurance is nightmarish, and I don't really want to deal with it much anymore.

I know this might appear foolish, but fighting with a corporation whose incentives are adverse to my own (both on the medical side and the insurance side) makes me a little sick to my stomach.

I feel like ascribing it to "wonky brain chemistry" serves to erase agency. I read the article and there are very real and reoccurring reasons of incredible mistreatment for why this happened. It is not because he was simply unstable and decided to try suicide for no reason. He had such a reason that I am incredibly disappointed in the entire system that led to this.