CareFirst is the Blue Cross Blue Shield FEP organization that handles FEP overseas claims. They have done so for the 20 years I have been living in Thailand. However, they do contract with other companies to handle overseas claims for them. On January 1, 2024 they switched from GMMI to Geo-Blue. GMMI was great as was their predecessor. When GMMI took over, claims processing was a bit slow for the first couple of months, but improved rapidly. Bangkok Hospital Pattaya dealt with them directly for my inpatient care and usually paid their claim within 30 days of receipt. For my outpatient care, I paid the Hospital direct and filed a claim for reimbursement which was usually approved within 3 weeks and money transferred to my Thai bank account within 5 days after that.
I have quarterly monitoring visits when my maintenance prescriptions are also filled (90 day supply) that amount to about US$1,200+. For my claim filed in January 2024, Geo-Blue took 2 1/2 months to process and upon approval, another 14 days until the funds were deposited in my Thai bank account. For my claim filed in April, they took 3 months to process and again another 14 days before the payment was deposited in my bank. My latest claim, filed July is still pending, but based on previous performance will also take a long time.
Based on my contact with CareFirst about the extreme delay in the April claim, I got a reply that they were aware of the problem and were working on remedying it -- Considering this poor service has been going on for more than 6 months since the change over, I'm having doubts on their ability or willingness to get things corrected.