We are not born with Cigna (here after CDIC) fighting wisdom but we can sure see what works for the rest of the planet and make it work for us. This is no joke. The first and most powerful thing we can teach is what the great sage Sun Tzu (The Art Of War) had to say:
It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.
This is so true here. Your nemesis is CDIC and the people directly responsible for your pain. If you think this is anything less than a battle keep these very important things in mind:
CDIC is an insurance company. By definition, an insurance company is betting they won't have to pay. Therefore it is in the interest of the stockholders, etc to make as much as possible which translates directly to not paying out benefits. Therefore they do not care a whit that you are alone, disabled, broke, going to lose your insurance, house, etc. If they can find any excuse not to pay, they will. Remember the story of the fox and the scorpion.
CDIC deals with thousands of disgruntled disabled clients everyday. They make an intense amount of money off of folks who either don't know the system, are too intimidated by them or are just struggling so hard to get by that even one more weight on their shoulders can break them physically and spiritually. This is their target money-making group because at the most basic level, anyone with a valid claim that doesn't force them to pay is just plain free money for the stockholders. It gets no simpler than that.
CDIC is an enemy with four things on its side:
- Time: They can wait and stall literally forever while you are dying on the vine so to speak. They can and do have the will and ability to outwait your ability to survive. If you think this is cold, look into disease research sometime but sadly this is a fact of life. This is a terrible and powerful weapon.
- Money. They have a lot. Obviously they can out-spend you with no problem which means any tactic you have that requires more than a token investment is doomed to fail. Once they see you are spending money to do something, well, see #1. You will run out before they do, be it legal or other help.
- The rules. Well, the lack of it actually. You would be surprised how lax the laws are regarding the conduct of an entity such as CDIC. There are few standards and fewer people willing to take them on.
- Apathy. They do not care about you. The reason this is so powerful is that even if you try to keep the feelings in check, they can go for months feeling nothing (obviously) whereas you are keenly aware of the march of time, dwindling resources, anger etc and it weakens you when you need strength the most. They know this and capitalize upon it.
Now as depressing as that sounds, what can you possibly do in the face of such an enemy? Use what you have: a brain, time (on your hands) and determination. They are more powerful than you know. Check out your strengths:
- Time. Really? Indeed. How this works for you is that while they can out-wait you, you can use the time you do have to make the time they wait too expensive by making them waste resources on you. Make yourself expensive. They think you are just waiting by the phone. Get to know the team ;)
- Money. Yep. Or actually your lack of it. This may be a hard one for some folks but it absolutely will sharpen your warriors mind. If CDIC is already withholding your money, your savings is running out, things look their bleakest, use that. If things cannot get worse, you are an opponent with nothing to lose. They take it any more away. It takes a ton of power out of their threats like you would not believe. Don't believe me? You have already been denied twice and they are giving you grief by threatening to take away your benefits for ever....ever? What kind of threat is that? With this mindset it is easier to laugh in their faces.
- The rules. This is another place where knowledge is power. If you really learn the rules they have to live by or cease to function, it can give you a lot of things to investigate about them but when those turn something up, it can and usually is nuclear. This kind of pearl can be a game ender for them.
- Compassion. This is one of those Yin and Yang things. They have and use apathy so you use your compassion. One of the oldest sayings in the world is that misery loves company and brother, there is no more miserable group in the world than recipients of CDIC's tender care. So hook up with these people on the net, share stories about what you did to help yourself but most importantly, teach others.
That last point is an incredibly important one people. You see, they have all the money but what we have is people. We have knowledge. And thanks again to other successful warriors for guidance, we know that one of the single-most powerful attacks any real hackers of is known as the "Distributed Denial Of Service" attack only in our case, we use our very own community of others in the trenches.
Do we get much out of it other than their undivided attention? Just a Coke and a smile, like the commercial used to say. That and the knowledge that everyday they get to keep a little less of other peoples money. At this point cheating the disabled starts to get expensive for them. That is the power of community.
One final bit of wisdom to share when dealing with CDIC. This may also be a pretty hard thing for people to get their minds wrapped around so hang on. One rather heinous trick CDIC will pull on you is this...
There is an bit of lawyering advice that goes:
“When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. When the law is on your side, pound the law. When neither is on your side, pound the table.”
In this case it works like this: if you have a bullet-proof case for medical necessity, they will run you through a procedural gauntlet that would have made the Warren Commission proud. When you trip up here, no matter how good your case is, CDIC has you. If you follow their procedures to the letter and can actually keep up, they will attack the medical evidence.
If they cannot beat you either way, they will fall back on vague internal procedures or worse, their own in-house medical staff like Doctor McGoo who we will be meeting soon:
If you can recognize this tactic you can combat it because like everything else, we turn it against them. The real trick is no matter how strong you think your claim is, don't keep trying to combat the wrong case. When you recognize what they really are trying to claim (sometimes it is hilarious, sometimes insulting) the battle becomes a lot easier.
For exact how, we need to tie a few other things together first.
Soon,
The Tactical Team
CignaWarJournal at Gmail dot com
No comments:
Post a Comment