Need advice on salary continuation for surgery

Magic Pink

I'm scheduled to have spinal surgery at the end of the month but I just found out the company my employer uses for leaves of absence and salary continuation won't approve salary continuation until AFTER you've had the surgery.

I have no family and no one to fall back on after the surgery and if the SA isn't approved I literally can't do it. What are my options here? I can't risk not getting my salary for the 2 months+ I'll be out. As it is now I'm going to have to cancel the surgery and just live with severe back pain.

DevoutlyApathetic

The approval coming after I think is actually standard which I agree pretty much sucks. Right after surgery you are not really up to doing things like haggling over paperwork issues and what not.

Psykoma

Can you check if the surgeon's office would file the paperwork?

Enc

Psykoma wrote: »

Can you check if the surgeon's office would file the paperwork?

This or find a legal council do to it on your behalf.

Magic Pink

No matter what or who files it or when, they won't approve it until after the surgery. Full stop.

I can file it right now if I wanted to. That's not the issue.

Enc

Right, so can you have the doctor and/or a legal council file it for you on the day the surgery is completed after the event is completed?

Alternatively, can you contact your bank for a short term loan to cover the bills between surgery and pay compensation?

BlazeFire

Is your concern that they may decline the salary continuation and you are not willing to take that risk?

Magic Pink

BlazeFire wrote: »

Is your concern that they may decline the salary continuation and you are not willing to take that risk?

Yes. If it's not approved I can't do the surgery. There's simply no way.

Magic Pink

Enc wrote: »

Right, so can you have the doctor and/or a legal council file it for you on the day the surgery is completed after the event is completed?

Alternatively, can you contact your bank for a short term loan to cover the bills between surgery and pay compensation?

There's no guarantee there even will be pay compensation, that's the problem. I can file all the paperwork right now, this very second. They won't look at or approve any of it until I wake up from the anesthesia.

Psykoma

Insurance providers won't officially look at an application until after the surgery, but in my last two surgeries I found that if I called the insurance agents before and talked to them, they wouldn't be willing to give a concrete answer but would give me enough of an answer that I was comfortable enough operating under the assumption that salary payments would continue.

They won't say whether you'll be approved or not, but they generally would say what could cause your application to be rejected (generally just lack of documents), so you can plan your application using that information.

DevoutlyApathetic

Have to say I hadn't heard the phrase "salary continuation" before and googling it the quick definition box is grimly ironic.

A salary continuation plan describes in writing, before any disability occurs, what an employer will do in the event an employee becomes disabled. With such a plan, the employer can continue paying all or part of an employee's salary.

So yeah, trying to make sure that you completely comply with the written plan before hand seems to be the way to minimize the downside risk. Still doesn't eliminate it though.

I Zimbra

Ugh, we dealt with short- and long-term disability last year and it's an ass pain. But approval for this should be pretty much automatic. You're having a medically necessary surgery and (presumably) your leave is approved by your employer. Even as goosey as insurance companies can be this is as close to a slam dunk as you can get.

The best thing you can do is file before the surgery so that the claim gets assigned and you can have a single point of contact instead of dealing with customer service, and make sure all your ducks are in a row regarding documentation from your doctor.

Magic Pink

Psykoma wrote: »

Insurance providers won't officially look at an application until after the surgery, but in my last two surgeries I found that if I called the insurance agents before and talked to them, they wouldn't be willing to give a concrete answer but would give me enough of an answer that I was comfortable enough operating under the assumption that salary payments would continue.

They won't say whether you'll be approved or not, but they generally would say what could cause your application to be rejected (generally just lack of documents), so you can plan your application using that information.

I already called and they flat out refused to say anything.

I Zimbra wrote: »

Ugh, we dealt with short- and long-term disability last year and it's an ass pain. But approval for this should be pretty much automatic. You're having a medically necessary surgery and (presumably) your leave is approved by your employer. Even as goosey as insurance companies can be this is as close to a slam dunk as you can get.

The best thing you can do is file before the surgery so that the claim gets assigned and you can have a single point of contact instead of dealing with customer service, and make sure all your ducks are in a row regarding documentation from your doctor.

Thanks, this is reassuring. Still don't know that I'll go through with it tho.

I Zimbra

I hope that you're able to get the surgery and it brings you relief. Chronic pain is the drizzling shits.