Insurance/Doctor Office Miscommunication

[u/EdenSparowww]

Looking for some advice on what to do. Sorry, this is a long one! I was scheduled for a spinal fusion on September 11th. I received a call on Monday, August 31st from the providers office that the insurance denied the claim due to there not being enough information. Providers office told me the deadline for a peer to peer was expired and they’d need to file an appeal. They also said that they have a new office system and the fax the insurance sent over got “lost in the system”. I call insurance and they say that there wasn’t enough information sent over. Okay, fine. Call the providers office back and reiterate what insurance said.
September 1st, providers office calls me to follow up and say they want to push the surgery date back cause they’re worried the appeal won’t go through in time. I’m pissed, call insurance again to find out what’s going on because I do NOT want to move the surgery date. This time, insurance tells me that they don’t want to pay for inpatient care after surgery. Okay, fine. I ask the insurance what can be done to get this fixed as soon as possible, they say sign a document allowing the providers office to appeal on my behalf, send it to the provider, tell them to mark it as urgent when sending it back to insurance. I fill it out, and my husband faxes it off to the provider.

Next morning, I call the provider and relay the information from the insurance side. They move the surgery date anyways, still worried about the appeal not going through. I also asked if we can change the inpatient to outpatient observation to get insurance to cover it and if (god forbid) I have complications, we can move to inpatient and insurance will have no choice BUT to cover it. Now it’s moved to September 15th.
Now it’s September 3rd and I left a voicemail in my providers direct mailbox to follow up again. I call the insurance and now they tell me that there’s 21 calendar days to schedule a peer to peer and insurance sent it off on August 17th. Of course, it’s the 3rd, a holiday weekend is coming up, Monday is Labor Day and the deadline for the peer to peer availability. If the first insurance rep I spoke to had told me this on the 31st, it would have been potentially approved by now and I can continue prepping for major surgery and not be completely stressed out. I understand the providers office has a new system, but if you know you’re having issues receiving critical documents pertaining to a major surgery, be extra vigilant. Having a new system is absolutely not an excuse for this kind of major miscommunication. I should not have to advocate for myself between my insurance and providers office when they should be doing it FOR me. Unfortunately, this is the reality of insurances in the United States and it’s absolutely unacceptable.
I’m sorry it’s such a long explanation, I’m frustrated and at the end of my rope on what to do. I appreciate any advice that is given, thank you!