Description

I was trying to Google Medicaid eligibility and ohiohealthcoverage.org was the first search result. Assumed it was a government website, requested a quote thinking it would email me something telling me whether I was eligible. The website told me to click a giant button to receive a phone call with my quote at the end of the form (which asked for my name, address, phone #, height and weight, number of household members and household income within preset ranges, pregnancy status, smoker status, a limited number of pre-existing conditions, and I think a couple other things I forgot.). I figured why not, wound up on the phone with "James" who wanted to know how per month I'd pay with COBRA, my previous carrier, and how much I was paying previously, and then said he found a plan for $312 a month with no deductible due to my being young and healthy and not having a coverage lapse yet. I said I was only researching options, and he said if I waited to enroll I'd have to wait till August for coverage to kick in due to it being the end of the month and I should do it now if I didn't want a lapse in coverage for a month, and that the staffing agency I just got a job through might have bad options anyway, and that I had 30 days to change my mind anyway and cancel, so I should enroll now just to be on the safe side. (He also said previously it would be a month to month plan). I had apartment maintenance in at the time and was distracted, so I agreed. I was then transferred to "Samantha" in the verification department to go through all the personal and contact info I'd entered before, and told I owed money now for July. (Having coverage a month before you paid made no sense anyway so I chalked the first guy up to "nobody in insurance agrees with each other when you want a straight answer anyway). I gave them my credit card info over the phone, ended up paying $437.85 because an American Business Association and some other membership was included, plus a separate dental plan. They gave me a reference number they said they would always provide when calling me so I would know it's a legit call. Then I realized 5 minutes after hanging up that a government agency phone call being fast, efficient, and helpful was a ridiculous concept and went back to check the website, and there's a tiny banner at the top saying it's not a government website. So I started googling, and found the BBB page full of complaints about them from just this month about them being a marketing lead farm. And then I realized how weird it was that it's "ohiohealthcoverage" and James claimed to be a senior employee, but he started looking in Missouri first for plans before I clarified where I live, and he didn't know what state my city of residence (that I'm pretty sure everyone knows as a big OH city) was in. So I responded to one each of the several emails I received for the supposed health and dental plans telling them to unenroll and refund me, as well as a text from the dental one. The text response was a bunch of random shit like "you need to configure your SMS URL," and the email response from the health one (Adroit Health Group) was a bunch of sweet-talk about how they need to call me to confirm I really want to cancel before doing that. Which last response is what prompted me to file a complaint. Also I've started receiving health insurance marketing texts just like the other people complained about online. And I explicitly said at one point "I don't know the Medicaid rules, do I lose eligibility if a job offers me insurance of a certain quality," and they responded as if the question was meant for them, so they're kinda impersonating a government agency?