Prozac may be hazardous to your health insurance

from MSN money



If you've had even a mild bout of depression, you may find buying an individual health insurance policy a challenge. Here's how to succeed in the process.



Imagine that many years ago, you suffered mild depression when you broke up with your significant other. You briefly sought mental health help.



Now you're happy and healthy, but you get a rude awakening when you try to buy individual health insurance: One by one, your applications are denied based on the six counseling sessions you had a decade ago, which are permanently recorded in your medical history.



You've all but forgotten about your ex, so how can this seemingly insignificant episode be coming back to haunt you? Are you really on your way to becoming uninsured? Over this?



You very well could be if your only choice is individual health insurance, according to Karen Pollitz, a Georgetown University researcher who co-authored a 2001 study on the individual health insurance market for the Kaiser Family Foundation with Richard Sorian and Kathy Thomas.



Individual insurers may deny you coverage based on your medical history if it includes:

Use of prescription drugs to treat anxiety, depression or a physical condition, including Ativan, Klonipin, Paxil, Prozac, Serzone, Zoloft, Xanax and Wellbutrin.

Counseling for anxiety, depression, grief or an eating or sleep disorder. Even if you briefly sought counseling as a way to cope with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, you could be denied individual health insurance, according to researchers with Georgetown's Health Privacy Project.

"People who've always had group health insurance are completely unprepared when they're forced to seek coverage in this (individual health insurance) market," says Pollitz. "They think they're going to get the same coverage they had in their jobs, except they'll just have to pay a little more money. It's absolutely not like that at all. The individual health insurance market is unpredictable, inconsistent and expensive."



Dr. Deborah Peel has seen the unpredictability of the individual health insurance market up close. Peel, currently president of the Appeal for Patient Privacy and formerly president of the National Coalition of Mental Health Professionals and Consumers, recalls a young graduate student whose sleep apnea was treated with antidepressant medication. When he was dropped from his parents' group health insurance plan due to his age, he began applying for a policy in the individual market. He was turned down several times because his medical records showed he had taken an antidepressant, even though the medication was for a physical rather than mental condition.