by owner Alexander Coco,

BA Philosophy Reed College

 

I had been going to a therapist I liked for several years, but my health insurance company had stopped processing my psychotherapy claims. It ended up being a ridiculous mistake on the part of the insurance company, but they refused to fix the issue. My therapist had a part-time biller, but they were unable or unwilling to do anything to fix it. If I wanted to keep my therapist, it was on me to figure out how to resolve the issue. So started my slow descent into learning how an insurance company really works and how it doesn't. 

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Day after day, call after call, I learned that I needed to keep reference numbers and names. That representatives that I called had no real power to change anything, and that the people that could fix the issue existed in a place I had no idea how to communicate with. My therapist was gracious enough to keep seeing me through my insurance odyssey. I am persistent. I learned to make escalations, and to escalate the escaltions, to call out outright falsehoods, until eventually hundreds of calls and hours later I finally restored my full benefits and got my claims processed and paid to my therapist.

 

She was surprised I succeeded and told me I was the first person to ever go that far to resolve an insurance issue, they had been a big problem for her and other clients in the past. She suggested that I could pursue this as a profession. I was good at it.

 

Thus began my journey into the bureaucratic labyrinth that is modern insurance. The truth was, I like it. I like that I can help people to be able to get life changing help from therapists like you. It also gives me a great sense of fulfilment that I can help therapists actually get paid for the work they do. They deserve to, you deserve to. 

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I learned the ins and outs of credentialing, billing, and practice management. I draw from my experiences. My philosophy degree instilled critical thinking skills, creative solutions, and the importance of human connections and development. I also use my experience working in non-profits for website design and social media marketing to help spread the good word of private pay, as well. So that people can find and keep the therapist that helps them the most. Sometimes insurance doesn't cover treatment with therapies that are so desperately needed. There is so much work to be done to help people in our society and you are the best hope we have for not only surviving but thriving. I'm happy to play a role in this incredible work!

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Alexander Coco