How do I even start to fill out these short-term health care applications?

August 29, 2008 7:37 PM

How do I fill out an application for short-term health care if I barely even remember which doctors/clinics I've been seen at, let alone why?

So, now that I'm all unemployed and without healthcare, it seems like a good idea to sign up for a short term or catastrophic plan. Michael Moore's Sicko has me all freaked out that if I don't disclose every last hangnail, the insurance won't even matter in a pinch because they'll go all Private Investigator on me and drop me for some minor misrememberence.

So, I probably need to collect all of these disparate records into one place. Google Health seems to be ready to serve this function, but it seems like a Bad (!) Idea (!) to put that kind of stuff up on the web behind a wimpy password when it has no good reason to be there. Is there another service where they'll go from a list of clinics you've been at, then have you sign some release forms and send you the stuff without doing your own legwork? Is this what health care brokers do? Are health care brokers a good idea or a rip off?

posted by Skwirl to Health & Fitness (4 answers total)

I used to get short term health care quite often between work contracts and never had to do all that stuff. Just sign a form that I wasn't pregnant or dying of an expensive lingering disease. I could be wrong but doubt they'll check it that thoroughly.
posted by fshgrl at 7:49 PM on August 29, 2008

I'm also between jobs and I just looked up info on short term coverage. Every application I looked at only asked about cancer, heart conditions and other major stuff. Really it was two or three questions out of a dozen. Are you actually seeing applications asking for this stuff?
posted by Science! at 8:04 PM on August 29, 2008

I did an application like that. It asked for every doctor's appointment from the last 5 years (date, doc's name, diagnosis). And the form had a ridiculously small space to write all that in.

I just did my best, and wrote "not sure" for some.
posted by meta_eli at 8:05 AM on August 30, 2008

My recent private health insurance application wanted info on everything for the past 10 years. I did the best I could, putting down things like "various sore throats and colds" when I no longer had more detailed information. The insurance company called me to ask questions about several of my entries, and all they cared about was whether the conditions were cured or not. They just wanted to know which conditions were current or chronic, presumably so they could deny me coverage or charge me higher rates. This was not short-term insurance; YMMV.
posted by magicbus at 10:18 AM on August 30, 2008