I've come up with a slogan for my health insurance company:

Aetna Health Insurance: Your Life Is Just Business

You see I've been experiencing a pain in my leg that started in my lower calf. It started about 2 weeks ago & I figured it was probably a mussle spasm. The pain has moved, however sloly up the back of my leg and the pain is now sitting just above the back of my knee, so it slowly shift up all the way thru my calf.

I went to see a doctor today and he stated he was worried it could be a blood clot, which would be a very serious issue if in fact that was the case. He said I needed to get an Ultrasound TODAY, as if it is a blood clot, it could be life threatening.

So I began to call facility after facility to try & schedule an Ultrasound appointment, with little luck of actually getting one today. After calling all the facilities the insurance company had given me, and not having gotten an appointment, I called my insurance back. The person I spoke with stated simply that they have no control if any of the offices (only ones which Aetna supports) does them or doesn't do them.

I asked quite simply if they had ANY recomendatios, and they refused to give me even one. I told them that personally I wouldn't mind waiting until tomorrow, but the doctor said I needed one ASAP. Again they refused to give me any advice. So, here I was (and still am), sitting with a possible medical condition that literally could at any given second lead to an anurism, which would most likely lead to death, and my insurance company is sitting there saying "we don't care if you could die, that isn't our problem." The guy didn't even bother recomending going to a hospital. When I mentioned it, he proceeded to IMMEDIATELY inform me that it would cost me a bunch more money than waiting for an appointment. It seemed rather obvous to me that their concern was not saving me money, rather that if I did go into a hospital, they would have to spend much more as well.

So I told the guy I guess really I had no choice but to play russian rullet and he started laughing, seemingly not realizing what I said wasn't ment to be a joke... When a health insurance company laughs at a real posability of a patient dieing, that pretty much sums up exaclty how they feel about their memebers and the value of life.


If you are looking into the posability of signing up for an Aetna plan, I would strongly recomend you look elsewhere. In the past I've used both Blue Cross & Blue Shield, and in BOTH cases the companies main concern when a patient called with a medical issue was to ensure they got the help they needed, especially when a life could be on the line. With Aetna, that apparently isn't even a factor as far as their concerned.

I fortuantly was able to eventually get an appointment with the help of the doctor's office. It was an urgent care center that was packed at the time & they still took time out to help... Aetna, on the other hand, would rather see a patient die than have to pay to send that patient to the hospital.