Wiki Determining Primary vs Secondary Insurance

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An established patient was seen in our office today. She had quit her job last month and has insurance coverage with that employer until the end of this month (not cobra).

She had started a new job last month with a new employer and also has coverage from this new employer. Both of these plans employs more than 25+ employees. I have looked up both plans since commerical insurance is Regence to determine c.o.b. but both plans has no information on additional payers.

I have tried to look up the rules on this but did not find anything on this particular scenario.

Would the previous plan be primary or secondary to the new employer plan?
 
Also, this is the patient's responsibility to know, and to make sure both insurances know. They should first call the cobra plan, and let them know they have an employer plan. The cobra plan should agree that they are secondary. The patient should then call the employer plan, and let them know they have a cobra plan, and the employer plan should agree they are primary.
 
Thank you Sharon, I appreciate it. That was the very website I had to gone to as I was researching to make sure I was not missing anything before posting this. 😌:love:

At first, when patient came into the office, I did inform the patient during check in that her previous employer would be considered COBRA and new employer plan was the primary. Patient was "adamant" that previous plan should be billed as primary and was not COBRA because she "did not apply for it." 🤦‍♀️

But your response made me realize, I should have read up on COBRA to refresh my memory on the details of it.

Thank you again! You're awesome!
 
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