Opt in is when you have to sign up to receive something. Opt out is when I am going to send you my email until you complain.
A major insurance company moved their payments from check to electronic ACH payments. The explanation of benefits (EOB in medical language) which explains what was paid for, how much was paid, and what wasn’t went online through their portal.
After ten months, I received an email informing me that I had upgraded to the premium version of their payment portal. The free trial would expire February 28th and then it would cost 0.5% of claims paid. I never signed up for the premium portal. I haven’t been on their portal since we set it up. They were acting like I opted in when I need to opt out.
Remember in Superman 3 when Richard Pryor’s character sets up a program so all the fractions of a penny in the company payroll software flow to him. Of course he spent it on fancy cars and was immediately caught.
This is even craftier. What is 0.5% of a trillion dollars of claims paid? 5 Billion Dollars! If only 1% or providers don’t opt out of the premium portal, the company will pull in as much as 50 million. Fifty million dollars paid by providers to the insurance company for electronic payments and online EOBs which save the insurance company money in the first place.
My dad would have said “They have the guts of a bankrobber.” To make it even funnier, they technically are a bank.