Email Written to Director of LANL

(Sent to Mr. Anastasio by Lanl Employee, Im posting this for the LANL employee)

Sent: Monday, February 25, 2008 10:30 AM To: Michael R Anastasio
Subject: Surgery Bills

Hello Director Anastasio,
Several dozen of your employees have a serious problem regarding the follow-through on pre-authorized, promised, employee-paid benefits.I'm sure you're a very fair man with some very smart people working for you, but the situation happening right now to 70-80 of your employees is neither fair nor smart. Hopefully you'll agree that we need your help in resolving this problem before it gets any worse.Despite paying increased rates for Health Care coverage; about 70 to 80 of your employees have been purposely 'stiffed' on the medical insurance payments for their pre-authorized / approved medical procedures totalling approximately $450,000.00. I won't bore you with all the details since your staff is already well aware of how the surgical procedures for those 70+ employees have been summarily "Rejected" well AFTER the pre-op approval was provided by United Health Care (UHC) and long AFTER the surgeries were completed. Those surgeries were originally pre-negotiated and approved in writing with Physician's Medical Center (PMC) of Santa Fe, then months after the surgeries took place, UHC rejected the hospital charges and dumped nearly $450K in charges onto your employees.You can only imagine the financial (and "Q" cleared job) concerns these employees suddenly have when they find themselves 180+ days overdue on 4 to $8,000.00 in medical bills which were supposed to be paid by our Health Care provider.Our Benefits Department directs us to talk with the on-site UHC Rep. who even has a recorded Voice-Message to individually "Write to UHC for your appeal". I'm confident that (like myself) all 70+ individuals involved are flailing around writing to UHC, their attorneys, State Representatives, Attorney General, Public Regulatory Commission, Governor, as well as at least 3 newspapers seeking ANYONE to listen and help! Those random contacts don't represent 'productive time' for LANL and don't shed a positive light onto LANL.Coincidentally, all the 'stiffed' employees, we know about, went to the same "Non-Los Alamos" hospital for their surgeries. Maybe THAT has a bearing on UHC living up to their commitment to pay for services approved and rendered. This action, by UHC, to renege on the pre-authorized / negotiated medical procedures is directly counter to your position of helping and supporting new area businesses in Northern New Mexico. That total, long-over-due hospital bill of about $450K isn't very supportive of better medical care so badly needed in NM.PLEASE Director, ask one of your staff to HELP US with this problem as opposed to ignoring us or telling us to just 'Call someone else'.
Thanks for listening and Thanks in advance for any assistance you can provide.