
Monday 26th of March 2018 04:53:04 PM
I've been an RN Case Manager at Hahnemann Hospital, part of Tenet Healthcare, since September 2003. I have had to use the Unum disability insurance (the only option we're provided with) for any medical leave since being hired, and have had many more negative interactions than positive ones. I have had chronic back pain since an MVA in 1991, which I was desperate enough to make go away that I agreed to a 2-level spinal fusion in 1/2003 (even though I knew there was a really good chance that it wouldn't help!). I was right, it didn't help, and when I tried to get my employer (Horizon Blue Cross of NJ) to set me up to work from home (which other nurses doing my same job were already doing! ), she instead fired me for being absent! I started working at Hahnemann a few months later.Since 2006, I've had to misfortune of having to use Unum multiple times for short-term disability, and I've had problems with my payments for more half of those periods of disability. Since I returned to work after all but present episode, I was eventually able to start bringing in money again by returning to my job. This time, however, I'm in a different position. I've been getting treated for osteoarthritis in my knees, hands, wrists & fingers for years. At this point, I'm no longer able to tolerate hours of computer, mouse, charting & writing anymore, and & meds I've been taking all these years make me a little drowsy, leaving me in danger of being fired for sleeping on the job!I didn't receive the check for the initial 6 weeks I was out (which included a 2-week elimination period that I was paying extra to reduce from 4 weeks) until AFTER I was initially scheduled to have returned to work! I was the one who put the paperwork into the fax machine at the doctor's office for the first 6-week extension of my leave. I gave them a few days to work on the records, and then discovered on the website that they had closed the claim! I called them, and went back to the doctor's office to resubmit everything to them through the end of July, and waited again for something to happen. Nothing did, so again I called, and uploaded the chart info myself to ensure they couldn't deny receiving them.The day after the records were uploaded, Unum generated another letter again asking my doctor for his records. When I called to tell them that both the office & I had submitted the requested information. I was then assured that the information was received & was being reviewed. Today, I dropped off my prescription for my pain meds and found out that my health insurance, which I sent almost $1,300 to Tenet to keep intact just after receiving the payment from Unum for June, 2016 (that I didn't receive until the last week of AUGUST!). I have to now deal with the Tenet benefits department to see if there is anything that I can do to get this mess fixed.My doctor wonders why my normally average blood pressure has gone into the stroke (200/100) range! The people at Unum have no conscience; they've received specific notes from my doctor noting that my blood pressure has been too high for him to give me steroid injections in the joints in my fingers, which has not happened to me before this summer.