Met staff face health cover crisis

A leaked letter from AGMA:

Dear Met AGMA Colleagues,

As many of you are aware, there is a significant issue with our Aetna health insurance coverage. Due to missed payments on the part of the Met, we are now receiving notifications that our coverage has been terminated. Unfortunately, because of the automated nature of the Aetna system, when they received reports that the Met was in arrears with their payment, we were all automatically dropped. Aetna is now, at the AGMA Funds direction, manually adding each Met member back onto the insurance. We believe this process will be resolved in the next few days, hopefully by Wednesday. (The AGMA Funds is not AGMA the union—it’s a separate organization).

The most important thing to understand is that none of us have lost or are missing health coverage. This is an administrative issue, but our health coverage remains intact and will cover any medical needs during the next few days. In the meantime, however, while we are covered, our healthcare providers are being told by Aetna that we are not. To navigate the next few days we would suggest the following procedure:

For appointments or procedures: you may go to those as scheduled. Ideally, you will be billed for these procedures. By the time you have received that bill you will have been added back onto the Aetna plan and our insurance will cover the bill. If the healthcare provider insists on you paying up front, please keep receipts of this payment to be submitted for reimbursement.

For prescriptions: As pharmacies are less likely to bill you later for filling prescriptions, if possible, it is best to wait on filling prescriptions for the next few days. However, if you can only wait a day or two, please email AGMA Funds Executive Director Rhonda Murray (RMurray@agmaretirement-health.org). She should be able to bump you to the top of the list so you can be re-added to the system sooner. Out of consideration for your colleagues, please save this procedure for pressing needs, as we expect everyone to be re-added early this week. If you need to fill prescriptions immediately, please keep receipts of this payment to be submitted for reimbursement.

Obviously this is frustrating and we are working to determine how such a mistake could have been made. You should be receiving a communication from the Met and the Funds soon with more information. In the meantime though, we wanted to get you what guidance we currently have. Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions,

Ned Hanlon

Met AGMA Committee Chair