Timing is Everything - Scheduling Your Child's Physicals for Insurance Purposes

Something I never thought about until I had to appeal to the health insurance company: schedule annual physicals at least 366 days after your last one if you want to avoid insurance claim nuisances. My daughter had her physical on 12/16/08 and her next one exactly a year later on 12/16/09. Maybe I should have taken it as a sign when it turned out that the appointment was never actually placed on their schedule and I never got a reminder call. I called on the day of the appointment to confirm and was told that there must have been a mix-up, but she was able to fit us in. Well, we received statements from the insurance company that the claims for the visit, including the vaccines that she endured, were denied because we reached the maximum allowed. I thought, how could that be? We were there in 2008, the visit was in 2009. Then we got the bill from the pediatrician's office. When I called the insurance company, the only thing that the associate was able to come up with is that the computer was counting days and it's exactly 365 days. "I always tell people to wait 367 days." That doesn't make sense to me, but when I schedule her next physical, I'll be sure to make it on 12/17 or after. The claims have been resubmitted, and we'll see in a week if the humans are more practical than the computer.