University Health Alliance

Hire more customer service personnel. Called this morning on hold for 15 minutes called again only for them to state that they have my message to return a call. Greattttttt

the 5 stars is for the Customer Svc Rep I spoke to… Stephanie (I think that’s her name!) she was awesome! I was just in California on vacation. before I left I tried to refill my prescription at my CVS because I was going to run out when I got back. long story short about that I wasn’t able to refill because I had just refilled it a few weeks ago and that I would need to call UHA.
This past Monday as my boyfriend and I are driving from his parents house in San Bernadino to my parents house in San Diego, I spent prob almost an hour on the phone with Stephanie, and the 2 CVS pharmacies (one here in Honolulu that I use, and the one near my parents house) to get my prescription mess figured out. when I say mess, yes it was a mess. when I first spoke to CVS in SD they told me that they weren’t contracted with UHA and I would have to call and find another pharmacy. Stephanie listed CVS as one of the pharmacies to use when I told her I needed to refill. When I told her they said they weren’t contracted she said «oh no no no» and called the one by my parents house to straighten this out. another long story short, I was on hold a lot while she was on hold with them. she was super polite, and always apologized for being on hold. she was very persistent to make sure I got my prescription which was awesome because I did need it since I was out. finally after getting the run around and being told my prescription was transferred from Honolulu to San Diego and not being able to figure out where it was, we finally made some head way and the pharmacist (shout out to John from CVS Esco!!) was able to refill my prescription. She made sure and even told me she wouldn’t hang up with me until we got this figured out. I really do appreciate that! I also work in the health care industry, and I know our Cust Svc Reps work hard too.
I’ve only been with UHA for a few months with my job, so I have nothing bad to say about the company as a whole. however I do miss paying $ 0 for meds, and office visits on the Hawaii state insurance, but $ 7 prescription isn’t terrible. lol

If your the H.R. person or the decision maker of your company. DO NOT CHOOSE this health provider.
Many of mentioned they are friendly. but friendly means nothing when they cover nothing. My plan says its a $ 12.00 co-​pay WRONG… its $ 12 plus tax and the tax is on the whole charge not the eligible charge. so you walk out never knowing what you will be charged.
I had a mammogram done. says 100% coverage Nope! I had an x-​ray done just got a bill for over $ 50.00…
AND there monthly charge for insurance is only a couple dollars cheaper than HMSA. Customer service isn’t everything when the cost is outrageous.
RUN RUN FAST and do not stop!

Their customer service guy I talked to, Donny was really knowledgeable and helpful. Sadly, the plan itself covers minimally. So if you are looking for a plan that’s going to cover you and your family, do not use this plan. I’m stuck paying a large $ 500 ER bill because of my $ 200 deductible and $ 337 co-​pay, plus the small Dr bills that was tacked on. HMSA or UHC has never given me this kind of shitty coverage and has worked with me. The plan might be cheap, but you get what you pay for. A greedy insurance company that doesn’t want to pay for their services. Plan 3000 plans sucks royally. Plan 600 is ok. If it wasn’t for the nice gentleman on the phone, I wouldn’t have given any stars. I used to tell people this was a great plan, but after this experience I know that I’m screwed of I get sick or end up in the hospital. Moral to the story, if you have UHA and end up in the hospital, just expect a fat bill waiting for you when you get home.

Company cares a lot for their member :) They are customer focused! #foundedbyphysicianfaculty at UH John A. Burns School of Medicine and first to offer preventative and wellness care in the state!

This is one of the worst companies ever. I believe that they will try anything they can to refuse to pay for legally and contractually required coverage.
I believe they only want to insure you when you are not sick and paying the premiums.
In our case, the UHA participating in-​state dentist saw something strange during dental exam and suspected cancer. He referred us to the only oral surgeon on our island to have it surgically removed ASAP, which we did. UHA now say it won’t pay for the surgery because the oral surgeon was «not in our network» — even though it was our network dentist that referred us.
Gets worse… The surgery revealed cancer, but the local (UHA participating) ENT doc said it looks like the cancer was «probably» removed by the surgery. We ask about a second opinion or a PET/​CT scan to confirm no cancer and the UHA doc says it isn’t necessary.
However, we learn from several mainland doctors that a second opinion and the scan are the «standard of care» in the cancer treatment profession. It is pretty much malpractice NOT to order a confirming scan (especially since one dies fast, if the cancer remains).
We arranged a second opinion and scan on mainland, after the mainland treatment provider confirmed that this workup/​scan was covered under our UHA ⁸⁰⁄₂₀ policy. When we got to the mainland, the hospital told us that it was outrageous that the Hawaii doc’s did not recommend the confirming scan. We had it done.
The day after the mainland medical care was finished, UHA called us to inform that the scan was not covered under our ⁸⁰⁄₂₀ — claiming there is no such coverage because we could have gotten the PET/​CT scan in Hawaii (even though the participating UHA doctors in Hawaii would not refer the scan), and telling us to expect about 40K in bills that UHA won’t pay.
So, in sum, UHA sent us to doctors who committed malpractice by not referring us to Hawaii doctors to perform the a scan — even though such a scan is the standard of care, and then — after it was apparent that the scan was medically appropriate, they refused to pay their fair share — because it was done outside of Hawaii. Our mainland treatment provider says UHA is likely trying to scare us out of future medical care, for which we are legally entitled to coverage. The hospital says certain insurance companies do this kind of thing all the time — to scare patients out of getting necessary medical services they are entitled to — by calling patients and telling them that they are not going to be covered.
This has to be about the 10^th time this horrible, horrible insurance company has jerked us around over recent years. Indeed, UHA just sent us some hack legal gobbeldygook still trying to make the case for no coverage — for a medically necessary — possibly life-​saving procedure.
Thank goodness our hospital is going to bat for us.
If you need insurance in Hawaii, try HMSA… or any corporation that is not UHA!

This review is for their Customer Service (which they lack).
I will have specific examples: An employee calls our store on odd hours, like week end (end of the day), or week day (after store closes) and each time just asks for a specific employee (which is already off from work) but never leaves a message. She calls using a private number and leaves no message. This is the same person calling constantly. We finally had to have our phone wired to see who this phone prank caller is. Oddly enough it is an employee (who does not identify herself) calling from UHA and just asking for an employee without leaving a message or any information for him to call back.
Flu Vaccine notification is sent to our store. The locations always runs out (like on the first day, also on the second, third, and so on. Come to find out, no one else was also able to get a flu vaccine shot. I have emailed and written to many other companies who also has UHA and guess what? No one else has been able to get a flu vaccine. My educated guess is that there wasn’t any flu vaccines to begin with. Just a big commercial to show how effective UHA is in trying to combat flus and colds before the flu season begins.
I have been paying for a drug coverage through UHA for a long time. When I visit my pharmacist to get medication, they tell me that I don’t have any drug coverage, and they say I have never had drug coverage. They show me the card that if I were paying for drug coverage, it would show the drug, vision, etc. on the lower half of my card. Guess what, they never sent me or my employees such a card and we never were ever covered for drugs even though we paid for it.
This is a lame company with the worst customer service. Unfortunately by law we need to be covered by a health plan. I think the State should really crack down on these insurance scammers and watch what they do like a second shadow. I bet they will find so much loose nuts and bolts that the whole insurance scam should be crumbled and dissolved.