Large-scale, privatized healthcare appears unable to provide actual healthcare.

And all that under the pretense of having "more options."

It's a scam that plays on people's well-being and that is very sad indeed.

This happened to us when we wanted to get my son help for some behavioral issues. Trying to find a counselor who specialized in helping children was a nightmare.

Our health insurer's website listed a few dozen, which was encouraging at first. But when I started calling them most were no longer in business, no longer accepted our health insurance (despite still being listed on the insurer's website), or didn't accept any new patients. And of the few who did have some availability, their evangelical Christianity beliefs were a fundamental part of their work - to the point where Jesus preaching was going to be a constant focus of the therapy.

We finally found someone (she was a devout Christian but it didn't interfere with her counseling strategies, so that's fine). But even she stopped accepting new patients soon after we signed up because she was so slammed with demand.

The state of mental healthcare in America is fucking atrocious. There are too few therapists in general, especially ones who help children. And as this article points out, health insurers deliberately make it so difficult for those counselors to use them that they refuse to work with with many insurance plans. And so many therapists are outside the pricing of families, even when they have insurance, and even with those therapists giving discounts.

A big part of this is the legacy that mental healthcare still isn't seen as a legitimate practice by many in the corporate world, despite their false marketing claims. Considering how frequently big insurers screw people out of claims for physical illnesses (cancer, etc.), you just know they will screw people with mental health challenges at least as much. Because to some of them - especially older boomers who are still lingering in senior management rules - it's all fud.

Another part of the problem (which relates to my previous point) is that mental healthcare isn't as quantifiable as most physical healthcare (because the brain and feelings are very complicated), so corners are cut and the industry is seen with suspicion and frustration by insurers who are focused on making as much money from their customers as possible.

The net result? A ton of people who are struggling through daily life with their own challenges, and exhausted family members and friends who are having to try to help them as best they can.

Until we massively overhaul the broken healthcare/insurance system here, shit like these ghost networks and the underlying causes and their other effects will continue to break our society.

Insurance companies need to face financial penalties for having these ghost networks. You should legally be able to demand, and sue for, $50 for every fake listing you find in your insurance's company's network. This is the 21st century. It should be possible for insurance companies to instantly know whether providers are still accepting new patients. Insurance companies could have a platform where providers can instantly indicate that they're no longer accepting new patients. And insurance companies could add penalties to their contracts with providers. If the providers don't update their status as soon as they are no longer accepting new patients, then the providers themselves will have to pay some sort of penalty.

Ravi didn’t know it, but he, like millions of Americans, was trapped in a “ghost network.” As some of those people have discovered, the providers listed in an insurer’s network have either retired or died. Many other providers have stopped accepting insurance — often because the companies made it excessively difficult for them to do so. Some just aren’t taking new patients. Insurers are often slow to remove them from directories, if they do so at all. It adds up to a bait and switch by insurance companies that leads customers to believe there are more options for care than actually exist.

I'm incredibly fortunate to be able to pay out-of-pocket for my psychiatric needs. I mean, the costs are very high but I receive great care from two providers (therapist and psychiatrist - one is for talking and the other is for meds). I was absolutely lost without them. I can't imagine the horror of needing access and being denied. This bullshit system needs to be solved. The richest nation in human history should be able to take care of its people. We're failing in the worst ways.

But, you know what? Let's focus on the genitals of school children instead of fixing anything. That seems like a good idea. I fucking hate the right for blocking us from discussing anything that's actually meaningful about changing society (I'm not saying trans rights aren't meaningful; I'm saying they weren't up for debate until they were a useful distraction from questioning power).

Too bad single payor is… SOCIALISM!1!1!1!1!

It's less of a problem with his insurance than it is therapists and insurance in general.

https://www.psychology.org/resources/therapists-who-dont-accept-insurance/

https://slate.com/technology/2022/09/therapist-insurance-copay-reimbursement-affordable.html

What does this mean (non-American here), that there are listings to get insurance from, but most aren't real and just offer what seems to be choice?

This is very familiar.

Health Net is one of Centene's companies and they pull this crap and worse every single day.

Health Net's provider lists includes a huge number of ghost providers. In my case even the ones that were real were the wrong kind of specialists. Heath Net insisted I go to these providers despite the fact they couldn't help me and refused to see me.

I ended up having to regularly make a 220 mile trip to get the healthcare I needed.

It gets worse. Health Net regularly refused payment for services that were covered under their policy. I easily spent 10 hours a week on the phone trying to get legitimate claims paid by this horrible company. The first 45 minutes of the calls were spent trying to get past their first line "customer service" people to someone who could actually deal with the problem. Health Net repeatedly refused coverage on DME that they had previously paid for and said the previous approvals were a mistake. They weren't.

Health Net even refused payment for a visit to specialist after they had provided pre-approval for the visit in writing. It took seven months and probably 20 hours on the phone before the crooks paid the bill.

Centene and their subsidiaries should be shut down and their executives should be in prison.