What level of DAN insurance to you carry?
- Thread starter rye_a
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Perhaps the biggest thing that DAN brings to the party is knowledge of hyperbaric injuries. Sure they may end up getting your primary health insurer to eventually reimburse all their costs, but they have a reputation of getting you in a chamber or on a chopper ASAP without waiting for a committee or supervisor to make a decision.
For me, it is worth every penny just for their administrative assistance when minutes count. I pity the guy trying to call the California version of Obamacare to see if they cover getting bent in Truk, let alone wait around to see what they will do about it.
For me, it is worth every penny just for their administrative assistance when minutes count. I pity the guy trying to call the California version of Obamacare to see if they cover getting bent in Truk, let alone wait around to see what they will do about it.
AdivingBel
Diver
kafkaland
Contributor
I have Guardian because that covers other watersports, like surfing or kiteboarding, too.
Personally I never bought DAN (and will never need) 'cause my personal insurance will take care of everything in case of any kind of accident relying to diving like going to the chamber, hospital etc.... it covers everything. It all depends how good your insurance is where you live, mine comes to a certain cost but is worth all the pennies (or cents :cool2: ).
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Kharon
Contributor
Critical, info. Cave diving is rather more spectatularly danger prone than the diving I'm interested in doing. And you mentioned that you had to call DAN first. Also, you did the transport. IMO you should have called 911 and gotten a med team on him much sooner. Moreover, this incident happened in the US in a place where you could call DAN and get through. Not always possible.
If there is an issue (which is exceptionally unlikely in my case) I don't want to take the time to call DAN, have them make any arraingements, etc. I want to get treatment straight away. If it came to having to pay 5K and get immediate treatment - well I'm good with that.
And how would you get that treatment right away? Would you drive to the nearest hospital expecting to have a fully staffed chamber ready to take you in immediately?
There aren't that many hospitals with chambers that will take DCS cases. With those that do, the appropriate staffs are not always on duty. The reality is that if you don't want to take the time to have DAN make the arrangements, you may end up delaying your treatment significantly.
In his description of the handling of a case in Florida, Peter described heading for Orlando and calling DAN on the way. When they got there, everyone was ready for them. It could not have been faster. But wait! Why did they go to Orlando? Wouldn't it have been faster to go to Gainesville? The hospital there is much closer. Well, when I was in Florida a couple of years ago, there was a cave country DCS case, and they went to Gainesville. They were turned away--treatment refused. That is happening a lot across the nation now. I don't know the current situation there, but I assume Peter does, and DAN would have known it, too. They will direct you to a place they know will take you in, and the staff will be there or be on their way.
Last I heard there are over 65,000 pages of Obamacare regulations at the Federal level alone that health insurance companies have to “interpret”. That is in addition to the insurance company’s nightmare of internal paperwork that is still being generated trying to minimize liability and still be in compliance.
Chamber treatment is the only treatment for DCS and is the “standard of care” so will “likely” be covered eventually, at least inside the US. However timely treatment is also critical to treatment efficacy. If insurance company response times for unusual treatments were terrible before, Obamacare can’t be helping.
http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/diving-medicine/470206-dcs-treatment-obama-care.html
DAN basically built their business on health insurance companies’ slow and inept responses to diving related claims, long before the additional layer of Obamacare. Virtually every chamber ride has one or more hospitals as gatekeepers and they in turn have their payments department as gatekeepers to them. Pile on expensive high-speed medivac services and you have the perfect storm for sitting in a waiting room until your symptoms become permanent. DAN can cut through all the delays because they can authoritatively communicate proper treatment to medical staff in their language and guarantee payment.
Wow!! Reallty?!? Rather than pay $100 per year?
Fyi, most of my friends are pretty high up in the medical field. If I called 20 of them right now, except for the two divers, not a single one of them could tell me where the closest chamber is that supports divers. Calling 911 would do almost nothing for you except delay treatment.
I drove, because I could. We could have just as easily requested evac as we were far enough away.
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