how soon is too soon?

to start harassing my insurance company about my approval.  My surgeon's office submitted for approval last week and I've heard nothing.  I called my insurer 4 days ago to see if they've rec'd everything and they've rec'd nothing.  Sooooooo when should the games begin?

In my opinion its never too early.   My office submitted my paperwork on Jan. 30th.  I called the 31st to see if they had everything. The lady that I spoke with said she didnt show that they had received any paperwork on me and to call back in another week or so. I called my surgeon and asked them and they assured me that it was all sent. Instead of waiting a week, I called back the very next day and I was approved. They actually approved me on the 31st (which was the day they told me they had nothing on my file at all!!!) Basically I got an approval in 1 day. If I were you I would call every day....you usually get a different person so you wont really make any 1 person mad. Good luck and let us know how it goes.!! Kathy

This is a great question. I was wanting to know the same thing. My surgeon's office told me Thurs. that they were submitting it Friday morning & then I emailed her to ask her about it b/c I called my insurance company yesterday morning to ask them a different question but asked if they had gotten my paperwork for the approval yet. They told me no. The response to my email (from the surgeon's office) was to give it a couple of days for the paperwork to show up as being submitted in the insurance companies system. THEN... yesterday afternoon, after I returned home from having my upper endoscopy the surgeon's office called me to notify that my insurance had a pre-existing clause & that they wouldn't cover it for another year. This is completely incorrect & I called the insurance company to verify that. (the reason it doesn't fall under pre-existing is b/c my hubby's employer has 3 insurance options/ companies you can choose from- we switched during open enrollment so b/c we were already with a company approved insurance plan it nullifies the pre-existing)... ANYWAY- Now they are telling me that it was submitted late yesterday afternoon. I will probably call them by Thursday to find out if it is in the system yet. I will be as squeaky as a squeaky wheel can be. Good luck with getting your approval quickly. Jenifer

From working at an insurance company, I can tell you that it will take time for the information to show up in the system because of so much red tape that everything has to go through.  I would suggeest giving it five to seven business days to get everything into the system and having the proceessing start.  In most cases, I can assure you that calling 40 times in three days will not speed up the process any more.  Be mindful that hundreds, possibly thousands, of providers are submitting the same information, so it will take some time to get through it all.

 called Aetna , they say my approval is pending the Medical Director’s review.  They also said they have 45 days to review it…soooo, I’m going to wait until next week to call again.