Lanterncare Avis 9

This surgery coverage is a sick joke. San Diego has some of the best medical facilities and Doctors in the country yet Lantern doesn't seem to have anyone in town for me to see. Phoenix Arizona ? Los Angeles ? Give me a break. Not one pain management specialist in town ! My Anthem won't cover any surgical stuff because I have Lantern. We didn't know any of this. Lantern will tell you how great they are and its BS ! DO NOT get hooked up with this scam. Reminds of the movie "The Rainmaker" and Great Benefits Insurance company.

Eli is a fantastic ambassador for Lantern. What a great way to begin a relationship. My doctor exceeded all expectations. To be honest, we had chosen a Duke doctor and were pretty far along when we got the Lantern material in the mail. We had never looked at (and wouldn't have) Emerge Ortho, but are now thrilled that you made the connection with a first-class doctor. The savings for us just keep piling up. Thanks!

ZERO stars. My husband's company took them on as a Surgery center for spinal surgery. I signed up before our insurance kicked in April 1st. When I tried to get into my account, it would switch to my husband's account! SO, I called and talked to a rep and got no results. I called again and got the IT guy who said he would escalate it to fix it. THEY DID NOTHING! I called 2 more times after my surgery and they still did nothing. All they had to do was delete my account and have me start over. They did not do that. This company wanted me to fly from mn to another state to get spinal surgery and fly back. Then, fly back to that state to have a follow up appointment! Thank goodness BCBS gave me a waiver to see my surgeon and get the surgery done asap. This company is not recommended to anyone from me. Worst experience ever. I can hardly wait until they are dropped as a surgery center from our insurance!

My doctor referred me to an orthopedic surgeon for neck issues. On Nov. 19th, my MRI was in and I saw him and he suggested surgery on Dec. 2nd. I had questions so I called SurgeryPlus, now Lantern, for surgical advice. They told me that I would have to go through them and could not use my referred doctor for the procedure. They said they would send me a list of doctors in "24-48 business hours" and I would have to start over with them. They never did send any list but they did ask if I looked over it. I immediately replied saying I never received any list and asked what email it was sent from. I received no further response from Lantern about it.

I contacted my HR to see what I could do and they were able to get me an exception to allow my soon surgery already scheduled to be done by my chosen doctor. I sent the information to the doctor, but unfortunately, the precert team contacted Lantern for approval. I got a phone call from Lantern on 11/21 telling me that my doctor called them an they "told them they weren't good enough." I told them I got an exception for him and they rudely demanded paperwork right then. I let them know that I would be contacting HR. I contacted HR, Collective Health, and my doctor and got the surgery back on the books for 12/2.

My experience with Lantern was atrocious and their behavior was completely unprofessional. I was, thankfully, helped by my HR team and Collective Health and was able to get the surgery I needed without them.

Despite my surgery being scheduled for November 14, Lantern failed to notify me that my insurance (Aetna) had denied coverage until I contacted them myself—just 10 days before surgery. By that point, I had already begun the strict pre-op requirements and made significant personal and financial preparations.

Communication breakdown: No proactive updates. I had to chase Lantern for answers.

Documentation errors: Aetna only received partial records, despite Lantern being responsible for submitting the full documentation. I had even updated my “Care Advocate” a month prior that I had completed the required sessions.

Failure to advocate: I personally tracked down Aetna’s Clinical Policy Bulletin and confirmed directly with their pre-authorization department that my documentation met requirements. I forwarded this information to Lantern—yet my “care advocate” did nothing with it.

Single point of failure: When I called Aetna last week, they had no record of any pre-authorization submission from Lantern. I was told Lantern has only one employee who communicates with Aetna about pre-auths—and that person does not speak to patients. This bottleneck means there is no accountability, no transparency, and no way for patients to verify or correct errors.

Lack of support: My surgery is still showing scheduled for 11/14, but after calling twice (11/05 and 11/07) to ask how to appeal the denial, I received no follow-up as of 11/10—far too late.

Impact: This left me stranded, stressed, and uncertain at a critical moment in my health journey.

Lantern’s role is supposed to be advocacy and guidance. Instead, I experienced silence, mismanagement, and a process so fragile that one unresponsive employee can derail everything. Patients deserve better than to discover insurance denials only after they’ve already prepared for surgery.

Bottom line: Lantern Care’s negligence eroded my trust. If you’re considering them as a company, be aware that you may be asking your employees to do all the chasing themselves—and at the worst possible time.

Terrible, I live in a major city and they can not provide anyone close to me at all. They gave me one option over and hour away and two more that were 4 hours away. This should be illegal to call this adequate viable doctors within my area.
THEY ARE NOT IN MY AREA!!!

I have had the worst experience with Lantern. Getting answers has been a complete nightmare. I chose a surgeon from the list of recommended providers (2 hours from my home) only to find out they did not have a contract with the facility they wanted to perform surgery. Lantern wanted me to have it at the outpatient center, but per the surgeon, that was not an option as I needed to be admitted. The surgery for August was scheduled in May for August. The day before surgery, lantern had still not approved it, so I paid a portion out of pocket so I wouldn’t need to cancel surgery. I hear it was approved, but now Anthem has already been billed. So, here I am 5 weeks post surgery, drowning in medical bills (not to mention the hotel costs of pre and post surgery visits, the gas, the extra cost of someone to care for my daughter while I was out of town). Getting reimbursed is a nightmare. This so called monetary incentive is nonexistent. Anytime I call, it’s someone will call you back or this is in process. So, to summarize, I’m still paying my maximum out of pocket plus hotels, gas, PT costs, antibiotic costs…it is more affordable to the patient to go local. This company only added stress and additional costs to my surgery.

Lantern apparently has ZERO back surgeons in the entire Philadelphia Metro region. Nor do they have a website where you can see a list of surgeons in their system.  The representative promised to send a list of 3 surgeons, the max. number they'll provide for a request, within 24 hours and it's now been almost 48 hours with no email or other contact/feedback.  They are terrible. 

Claim to have no surgeons in Sacremento area. Claim they work with the health care group I use but don't have any surgeons with them in their network. Will only send a couple at a time that are 3 hours or more away.
Set me up with low rated doctor, gave me wrong contact info and address. Obviously want to get money from my employer to provide a service and then make it difficult so as patients will seek other means for their care so Lantern won't have to pay out. All about commitment to top notch surgeons at low or no cost and making it easy on the patient? Yeah OK.