Originally published at Kickin’ the new Kuh-nowledge. You can comment here or there.
Received a letter from the powers that be at work. They will be doing an audit of health insurance beneficiaries to verify that the people employees list as dependents are actually… well… you know… dependents. It’s a way to save money, and I totally get that.
However, they’ve hired an outside auditing firm to do the checking for them. Where it gets really interesting is the part where we receive a letter in the mail that basically says. Send proof of your status or we will turn off your health insurance. If you’re married, you need to send a copy of your marriage certificate. If you have kids, you need to send copies of birth certificates.
It was at that point that I said… Whu???? You want me to send a copy of my marriage cert to some unknown third party? Wouldn’t it make better sense for me to bring in a copy of the cert… show it to my boss and sign an affidavit of some sort? Why on earth would I send it to some company I have no prior relationship with (heck, I doubt I would even send it to companies that I “trust”).
The response from my HR department is that these things are public records and readily obtainable by anyone. My response, is, of course, if they are readily obtainable by anyone then why are you asking me to send them to this third party? Shouldn’t the third party be able to… well… you know… obtain them without me being involved.
The reason why this argument falls flat on its face is that even though these records are obtainable, they aren’t readily obtainable. It costs money to have the state send you a copy of some public record. That is the check that state agencies put on just anybody asking for these things. The idea being that forcing people to pay for these things is enough of a deterrent on just anybody grabbing these things up. It’s not perfect, but there you have it.
Let’s be clear… it’s not like I have a choice in the matter. It’s not like I’m going to fight it on principle while they pull the plug on my wife’s health insurance. The funniest part of this whole thing for me was when they told me, “We’ve hired this third party for YOUR privacy.” Say what? Laughable, I know.
As I told my HR folks… I’m sure we’ll all have a laugh when the cost of this auditing firm is added to the list of reasons our health insurance goes up next year.
–sam
I agree with you. Your word should be good enough for your employee. If they are not going to accept proof in person, why should you send personal information to a third party. Did all the employees consent to allow this third party to be a receiver of sensitive information. They should have to prove you wrong on their dime. You sign a code of ethics statement, right? (we do yearly). Basically this is a lack of trust in the employees.
Yeah… it’s really dumb on their part. They basically dropped this on us a week or so ago. It’s the first time they’ve done this. I must admit I was a little rude to HR, but I’m going to continue pushing them to rethink this stupid move.
–sam
Privacy is the new code word for “we know better than you what’s good for you. You don’t own any personal information about yourself anymore.” I know this because I have to deal with HIPAA for my research.
Yikes! I had to look up HIPAA… LOL 😉
–sam
I hate people.
Yeah… all I can do is laugh at this point.
If you happen to have one, make a photocopy of the certified copy of your marriage certificate and give that to them. I would not provide them with a certified copy that you paid money for.
If they want the certified copy just give them the address for the Clerk of the Court for the county you were married in. If they want a certified copy they should be willing to pay for it.
Oh yeah. I totally agree. Fortunately, they just one a regular copy, not a certified copy. If they wanted a certified copy, I would be raising a bit more hell about it.
–sam