DAN Insurance or Other?

[jkaterenchuk]

For all the Europeans, Aqua-Med is a great alternative and coverage is worldwide. I know several people that had to use their services and it worked fine for them. DAN Europe is not all that great and fairly expensive.

I would have thought coverage by DAN world wide would be the same but if I had not experienced an incident with a friend first hand I would not have believed it. Without getting into the details he had some severe visual disturbances while on a trip diving wrecks down to 250ft. A emergency Doc on the trip did an examination. A well know doc whom is a diver and deeply involved in hyperbarics was consulted via sat phone and DAN USA was consulted via sat phone all agreed a ride in the chamber was needed. DAN Europe said it was not needed.

John

[jkaterenchuk]

It is called socialism.

And for those that hold the Canadian socialized medical system up as the gold standard I hope you will now only get a physical every two years. It's got to be better for you and of course less expensive for your insurance company. In Ontario the government has just decided it is better for you to get it every two years. I can see it now. Terminal cancer patient discussion with his doctor. I am sorry but if we had only caught it 12 months earlier we might have been able to do more.

John

[dogwatch]

DAN is secondary insurance. The two would battle it out.

Dan is indeed secondary. I had two chamber rides and Blue Cross paid most of the bill before i could submit anything to DAN. I primarilly signed on with DAN because it was required by WKPP (early, original WKPP). DAN will also help with non-diving injury transport. I read a case about a bad bicycle crash where DAN covered medivac.

[skip]

And don't forget you must notify DAN immediately and they must arrange transport.

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[Tracydr]

For the Tricare people, it's my understanding that if ANY other insurance exists, Tricare becomes secondary. Is this true? Does that mean as I think it does that you are then counting on DAN as opposed to Tricare, Tricare can wash their hands of the event? Am I not better off with Tricare and not having DAN at all? If no, then why not?

I always thought so but- went to the ER, thought I had gotten mildly bent a few days prior. Tricare wanted to take the case to a medical useage board prior to approving hyberbaric treatment, even though the chamber doc and ER doc both recommended treatment. This board takes 3-5 days to make its decision.
They finally got things straightened out by admitting me to the hospital but the delay cost another 24 hours before I was treated.
From now on, I will have DAN for diving accidents. Even though Tricare specifies chamber treatments for dive accidents on their website, it's apparently open to their approval and discussion. I would hate to have that happen when I really,really need chamber treatment ASAP!

[TONY CHANEY]

Not really trying to disagree, but the hospitals I have worked at in the ER treats first and then let the consent forms catch up. In your case do you think that the decision took so long was because you had already waited "a few days" before going to the ER? Also, at the time did you have additional insurance with DAN or other? Just asking.

[a64pilot]

While I'm no fan of Tricare, just happens to be what I have and that's the way it is, I'd be willing to be ANY insurance has to approve pretty much anything that is not an immediate thing. I was in an aircraft crash a year or so ago, and when I was taken to the ER, they didn't call Tricare and get permission first, but for EVERYTHING else, I have to have a referral from Tricare first.
If you had gone to the ER and said I just got off a dive and I think I am bent, bet you would have gotten treatment and during your treatment, Tricare would have been called, but I think you went and said I think I got bent a few days ago?
Oh, and if you have DAN, better call them before you do anything and get their approval, how is that different?

[scububa]

DAN doesn't have a Basic or Best or Premium. Maybe I don't have any insurance???
I think they have Standard, Master and Preferred
Master, Preferred and Guardian in Canada.

What's the point of this pole, to determine relation of base level DAN, higher, none or some other?

[Tracydr]

Not really trying to disagree, but the hospitals I have worked at in the ER treats first and then let the consent forms catch up. In your case do you think that the decision took so long was because you had already waited "a few days" before going to the ER? Also, at the time did you have additional insurance with DAN or other? Just asking.

No, I know it was the insurance. I had the doctors coming in regularly, telling me they had been arguing with Tricare and that they were waiting for a decision before they could move forward. They finally realized that if I was admitted as an inpatient, they wouldn't be required to get prior auth. Part of the problem, however, is that I had a doctor dealing with Tricare who was foreign and had terrible English skills. I had the hardest time understanding him in person. I'm sure on the phone it would only be worse.
I've a
I've also worked in the ER environment and was perplexed that they even needed authorization since the dive doctor did consider it "emergent". I've never had that sort of fiasco happen when I was running an ER. It has always been get the test or whatever and ask later. I just assumed they had different rules for hyerbaric treatment.
After all the runaround, first hospital transferred me to second hospital because they didn't have a 24 hour chamber. The second chamber doctor was also perplexed so it could have been that the first doctor caused unnecessary confusion/delay by asking for permission when it wasn't really needed.
The problem with DAN's policy, that you must notify before even going to the hospital is that it requires the patient to basically decide that they have a dive related illness. It's almost, but not quite, asking the patient to diagnose themselves ahead of time. How many times are divers wrong they might actually are having an MI or sore muscles from over doing it? I'm not talking about experienced cave divers but the average Joe Blow rec diver with 20-50 dives. DCS is not only hard to diagnose but it can also mimic so many other problems. I really feel like the ER doctor should be calling DAN, once they determine that it might be a dive related problem, unless it was something obvious.

[TONY CHANEY]

Thanks Tracy but the question still exist...did you have additional insurance when this all happened? I am asking because I also am a Tricare insurance carrier and want to know if there is an ecessive amount of red tape prior to me getting treatment?