No I didn't, that email was 7 days after the surgery, I had already left Singapore and was back in Bali by then. (My "not fit to fly" letter stated I was not fit 'before' having the surgery, once the plate was in and the swelling had resided I was OK)
Well, I'm sure your doctor will see your blog post and write up a new letter for you. Of course in the off chance that this method is ineffective you could, y'know, call or e-mail the doctor's office and ask them to write the letter your insurance company wants. Honestly, I don't see what the insurance company is doing wrong at this point. They've told you exactly what you need in order get your surgery covered yet your refuse to provide the document that they are reasonably asking for. You have two super simple steps to recovering 10s of thousands of dollars:
(1) Claim your expenses that are clearly covered by your policy. The care in Bali, taxi ride in Bali, Flight to Singapore, Taxi in Singapore, Hospital stay, and the hotel in Singapore. That's gotta be at least $6,000 that you're just leaving on the table.
(2) Call your Doctor and ask him to write a better letter in support of your claim. It should be something like this:
To Whom it may concern,
I have reviewed the IATA manual and my patient Mr. Badger was unfit to fly pending his surgery. The manual states:
The following tables are provided as a guide to the timeframe that should elapse between a medical
event and the intended flight. The timeframes may be changed following considered medical
assessment of a specific case.
After my medical assessment I found Mr. Badger unfit to fly because:
(1) [Bad thing that might happen] because [medical reason bad thing might happen]
(2) [Bad thing that might happen] because [medical reason bad thing might happen]
(3) [Bad thing that might happen] because [medical reason bad thing might happen]
Because they said "No further medical input needed." which is a fairly clear "we don't require any more input from anybody, we've made our decision."
If after they "review" my case they ask again, I will reach out to the DR who treated me and waste more of his time, but I'm confident the insurance company would have still found a way to weasel out of it, even if the DR had been more explicit. I imagine it wasn't his first time writing a "not fit to fly" note, after all...
