BUPA Unfair Cancellation Charge

avijendr · 25 June 2019 at 12:08AM

The company which I work for provides private health care through BUPA. I've joined the company 6 months ago - I was recently contacted by BUPA for a health assessment. I was told if I reschedule it cost me £75 and if I don't turn-up I would be charged full (But never told me how much it would be)

I couldn't make it for the assessment as I injured my arm in the gym the previous day. A few days later my company got an invoice for £542.00 from BUPA. I called BUPA and raised a complaint. They called me back and said the complaint handler listened to the initial call and she had mentioned "I'd be charged fully if I don't make it for the assessment" - so I am liable to pay the full £542. I said wth? She never told me how much I'd charge and if I had the slightest clue it would have been £542, I would have at least crawled to do the assessment. She told, she can't do anything and the decision is made. She was extremely rude and told me, it was up to me to go to the website and check what a full cost would be. This is a clear case of misleading. How do I handle this? £542 is a lot of money and I've been clearly misled.

I am contacting my company HR on this matter.

Please advice on what is the best way to approach this?

tasticz · 25 June 2019 at 9:06AM

Did you take any time off work following your injury?

Did you visit your GP following your injury?

Quentin · 25 June 2019 at 10:20AM

Whenever you are not happy with your insurance company the route to go down is a complaint in line with their complaints procedure

Then if you are not happy with the reply or they ignore you for 8 weeks you can escalate to the FOS for their adjudication at no cost to you

Manxman_in_exile · 25 June 2019 at 11:08AM

avijendr wrote: »

The company which I work for provides private health care through BUPA. I've joined the company 6 months ago - I was recently contacted by BUPA for a health assessment. I was told if I reschedule it cost me £75 and if I don't turn-up I would be charged full (But never told me how much it would be)

Did it not occur to you to ask at the time what the full charge would be?

How badly injured was your arm (and what evidence of this do you have)? If it was so bad that you couldn't get to the assessment/take a taxi, I'm presuming it was bad enough to seek medical advice (possibly at the assessment!

).

If your employer is paying for this, they may ask similar questions.

BoGoF · 25 June 2019 at 11:14AM

Quentin wrote: »

Whenever you are not happy with your insurance company the route to go down is a complaint in line with their complaints procedure

Then if you are not happy with the reply or they ignore you for 8 weeks you can escalate to the FOS for their adjudication at no cost to you

Instead of your standard copy and paste job it would help if you occasionally read the post.

How can OP complain if it's not his policy. It's the employer that has been billed and are seeking money from OP.

Boggles190 · 25 June 2019 at 11:18AM

How can OP complain if it's not his policy.

The OP does still have a right of complaint as he's a beneficiary of the policy.

lisyloo · 25 June 2019 at 11:32AM

Did you try to cancel or reschedule the appointment?
If not was there a reason you or someone else couldn’t call them?
Did it not occur to you that it would expensive?

These questions are not criticisms they are pertinent to your complaint and will be asked.

avijendr · 25 June 2019 at 1:46PM

Thanks for all your answers.

The Injury was bad enough for me not to drive. I worked from home that day. But I could have taken a taxi. No I didn't had any clue it would have been this expensive, if I knew as I said in the original post, I'd have made it).

I couldn't cancel ( though I tried to login) as they needed 7 days for cancellation.
I thought it would be in the 100/150 range and was willing to pay from my pocket. But £.542, really? They should have told me it would cost me £542. That's all thing would have made a big difference. Now they are tell g me I should have looked up how much it would have cost. Where? How? Wasn't it misleading.

It's hard earned money. I could give that to charity instead for paying them.

lisyloo · 25 June 2019 at 2:18PM

I’m playing devils advocate here (but complaints dept will too).

If you thought it was at least £100 then why didn’t you get a taxi/train/bus?

avijendr · 25 June 2019 at 3:39PM

Thanks but, £100 or £150 is something which I thought I could afford, though I was extremely upset about the situation.

lisyloo · 25 June 2019 at 4:37PM

You need to complain officially, but in line with what BUPA have said it’s a strange thing to do to just guess the cost and it’s also strange not to get in cab (or train or bus) if you were upset
Furthermore you should have told them out of courtesy as someone in real need might have been on a waitlist and able to take advantage of the empty slot. That’s one scenario when they might have considered waiving the fee. However if you have given them no chance to re-use the slot then clearly they can’t offer it to anyone else.

BUPA Unfair Cancellation Charge

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