Empire BlueCross BlueShield of New York Reviews

Don’t. Don’t do it. I pay $900 a month to have my medically necessary claims denied because they’re not medically necessary according to Blue Cross even though they do no research. You wait an hour when you call their bragged about member services. Someone barely listens to you on the phone and says someone will call you back later and no one ever does. They for real hate you and don’t care about your health. How much my health has declined because they won’t give me access to the treatment I need is disgusting. They’re greedy and incompetent. They deny claims because they’re “too expensive” when they’re literally an insurance company…. like it’s your job to help us pay. They wont even fork over 30%.

I’ve been with Empire for years and I have always used the same NJ doctors and dentists. My daughter is 1 and a half and has had the same pediatrician for the majority of her life. We live in New York and Empire randomly decided that they were no longer going to cover our NJ doctors' visits. So all of a sudden I get a bill from my daughter's pediatrician for $500 for 3 visits that were empire decided to not cover without explanation. We pay empire almost $4,000 a month and they wouldn’t cover BASIC PEDIATRIC PHYSICALS AND SICK VISITS. After 5 phone calls, tears, raising my voice and blood pressure they told me there’s nothing they can do. We just cancelled today and will be finding a different insurance carrier. One that cares for their consumers and families who pay OUT OF POCKET for their absolutely disgusting customer service and horrifying benefits.

If you are retired and less than 65 years old DON'T EVEN CONSIDER EMPIRE!!! You will only be able to get an HMO policy in NYC and NO DOCTOR WILL SEE YOU without waiting for several months or longer! We waited 3 months and still had not seen a GP to get our meds refilled after moving from another state! We ended up MOVING OUT OF STATE just to get medical insurance and see a GP!!! We paid our $2000+ per month and got NOTHING in return!!! Considering all the 1 star reviews on this site for Empire I'm sure this review will be lost and I doubt anyone will see it. I've asked to be contacted by Empire so I can request a refund of the premiums we paid but I doubt I'll hear from anyone. They are truly that worthless... in my opinion... the only one that matters to me.

After months of weekly full-color postcards urging me to get a mammogram, I did. They told me that my $1,120/month policy didn’t cover this simple preventative care measure. Every claim I submit is soundly rejected until I can prove I obtained pre-approval. They don’t even cover 100% of my annual physical! This company had a D-rating with Better Business Bureau a year ago and now I was surprised to see it has dropped to a resounding F. One star rating average on Yelp. Would you want to have these guys as a health-care provider?

Blue Cross Blue Shield refuses to accept that I have not been a city employee or eligible for their insurance for months, despite many proofs of leaving the Department of Ed and their policy. Now, the doctors' office will not accept my new insurance, and BCBS will essentially not allow me to get the medical care I need with any insurance. They are the worst. The person I talked to at BCBS gave me a bogus phone number to call, and BCBS did not help in any way when my new insurance and my doctor reached out to them. All I need them to do is release me from the plan and they will not do it.

Empire Blue Cross Insurance is the most incompetent company since I retired and moved to Florida. The peer to peer physician had a call with my podiatrist to approve my MRI and he/she was disrespectful, rude towards my doctor and the MRI was denied. The staff at empire are also incompetent and nasty. Staff has also hung up on me in many instances. A Manager from Empire Ariana ** sent me an email on May 23, 2023 saying if she could assist in my care to reply to her email. So I did 3 times with no response. When I had this coverage in NY and I was working every procedure and surgery was covered. I move to Florida in 2016 and your company has gone down the drain. I need this MRI. Horrible insurance company. Disgusting and disgraceful.

Empire does not update lists of providers. They have lists online that were inaccurate then and are the same today. They list labs and doctors that do not take their insurance. Some are incorrect because they do not exist anymore. It is law that these lists are accurate. When you are deciding between companies, these lists become false advertising.

Like most health insurance plans they require you to see in-network providers but, they will make it impossible to reliably find and see covered providers. 1. The "Find Care" tool provided to identify in-network providers is full of incorrect information. It will tell you a provider is in-network but, then the claim will be denied and you will be liable for 100% of the cost. You have no recourse unless you call the morning of your appointment and record the agent on the phone telling you the provider is in-network.

As of August 3rd, 2022 (08/03/2022) Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association of New York's dental care provider list (on their website and Sydney app, and anywhere accessible to its members) is being falsely enhanced to populate a bigger in-network list than is actually provided by your current membership (specifically the ones for your PAID member ID when typed into their search). They’re doing this with the knowledge of it happening and aren’t doing anything to stop it.

I change my PCP by calling EMPIRE BSBC customer service and they confirmed the change. Later, after 5-6 doctor office visits I noticed that BSBC denied my visit to a specialist "Because my PCP on file didn't render that service". I called them and explain that I have the referral and that I changed my PCP and that I did everything by the book... Customer service people are useless... They can tell you only "what says in the file"... I tried to explain the whole process again and again... like you are talking with a wall... I will change my Medical Insurance and never again BSBC...

First time with Empire Blue and every time I have to do anything with them it's SO PAINFUL. I cannot wait until the year is up and I can try a different Health Insurance Company. Crazy for $650/month. Looking for a PCP within their website is so confusing, the algorithm kept trying to make me see Doctors far away and when I google the offices they are Gas Station parking lots!! Don't trust anything about that. Several doctors refused to see me because there's a code from Empire Blue that makes it look like I am on Medicare, but I'm not. Am paying out of pocket full price. So many days of my life calling and calling the doctors on the list, and they are all really weird rundown offices. Something seems so wrong

I am an Out of Network Provider in NJ and sent claims for patient with policy in NY (Empire BCBS of NY). When I called to verify coverage, they said the plan has out of network coverage for the services I render. After sending the claims, I received letters from Empire BCBS stating that the claim cannot be processed due to missing provider info, which is not true since I sent the claim form with the information. The service representative I've talked to said I need to call the local BCBS plan, but they don't have the contact info. I searched on the web, but Empire does not have NJ plan, so there is nobody to contact.

This company *knows* the Biden administration mandated the full reimbursement of expenses regarding Covid testing, including RT-PCR tests. Yet, they keep pulling old tactics to get away with their shameless scam: pay in only in part, and ignore the customer in hopes that we will eventually give up and stop complaining. I am insured with Empire BlueCross BlueShield through my employer, not directly. However, I just contacted HR and let them know of this irregular activity. I will also seek alternatives in the near future, as I expect my insurance company to be minimally honest, among other things. Stay away from this company.

They keep processing claim from an in network doctor as out of network. They did it in 2021 first time. They are still trying to fix it and reprocessed the claim 5 times. No one has got any money yet. For the same doctor they made the same mistake in 2022. Processed his claim as out of network again. There is a huge disconnect between departments and BCBC in different states. Every time I call I get conflicting information. Same is true for emails. I think they do it deliberately to rip innocent subscribers off their hard earned money. Pathetic company. Wonder how they became so big. Bribed their way up.

Don't use Empire Blue Cross...They didn't come to my aid at a time when I desperately needed it. After corrective jaw (orthognathic) surgery to address facial deformity, I was left with some severe sequelae: difficulty eating/chewing, swallowing, breathing, sleeping, and severe asymmetry of the back of the jaw (on one side, the ramus of the jaw was terribly flared out). My occlusal plane angle was severely out of the range of normal, causing my biting difficulty. My airway was still severely narrow and obstructed, leading to sleep apnea and breathing problems. Both of my jaws were still retruded (too far back) and vertically underdeveloped. I also had a prognathic chin.

Accepted in most places, and coverage is very good, also their customer service is very friendly, I have them for a while now and have absolutely nothing to complain about it and other people I know are very satisfied as well.

My partner signed up for this insurance during open enrollment last year because it looked like it had sufficient scope in terms of coverage and doctors. Unfortunately he was then diagnosed with cancer. Then, thankfully we thought, the insurance had an oncologist nearby. After a few sessions, we started to get large bills and the doctor's office stated that the insurance was claiming they were out of network. As it turns out, many of the listed doctors on their site, and the ones their agents tell you are in network, are actually out of network. Now we are without an oncologist. With a deadly disease. They cannot seem to be able to join a call to resolve the issue, and now after reading the other comments here, it appears that this is some sort of very large and deadly scam. We pay over $1,300 a month for this. And there is no doctor that he can use that is in network.

This place is a giant SCAM. Do not do business with these people. I've been getting my medicine which is 4 pills for 10 years now and they reduce it to 3. They offered to me to pay out of pocket. I tried and the pharmacy said I can't. Expensive insurance that I pay every week and now when it's their turn to pay they want to deny me my medicine which I need to survive. Agents don't do anything to help the cause, they put you on hold and tell you the same runaround which never leads to solving the problem at hand. I have had it with the little man always getting screwed by these insurance companies. I wish I could give it a 0 rating cause 1 is way too good.

Totally useless information and customer service. Listen. If I've submitted the same claim four times, denying for four different reasons (and I had to call and email multiple times EVERY TIME just to get a little information about what I was doing wrong, and there are no instructions anywhere), but it's only on the last claim that you tell me I won't be reimbursed because the provider is NOW out of network (although when originally choosing the provider I was told he WAS in network, but, "Oh, sorry, that must have been a mistake")... Your company is unethical. Your customer service is inconsistent and unreliable. And you don't provide the necessary accurate information in order for the insured to make informed decisions. Worst of all, you are costing yourselves MORE money by only paying for expensive things instead of making it easier to get less expensive care and prevention. This is a great example of what's wrong with the system.

LOOK, My humble opinion and I believe the following thoughts: I WILL NEVERRRRRRR**** GET EMPIRE AGAIN. January 16, 2018 MRI and left Empire January 18, 2018. They refuse to pay. After dealing with from October 2018 to now. Now I will file complaints with NYS and US Attorney General's office, NYS Governor's office, Health Bureau, FTC, many government entities and websites. They also violated HIPPA regulations I believe. 518-367-4737 Bridget ** management and supervisor Ayanna ** at extension ** reference number ** – ** . It's disgusting they kept jerking me around for months saying it was in appeals and then appeals didn't review all doctor's documents for some reason. I think I was denied because my insurance ended couple days later like it feels to me malicious. I also filed reviews on Twitter and Facebook. Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance. I wish there was a way to give zero stars.