Effective 1/1/09 Alcatel-Lucent changed their retiree medical insurance options from United HealthCare, which all of our doctors and hospital accepted; did away with that choice and offered SecureHorizons. We are in June now, and although we have tried to educate our current doctors and specialists, they will not accept us as patients under this plan. The customer service dept. of this plan doesn't seem to care in that they are telling us to drive to Jacksonville, FL, over 1 hour one-way to receive treatment. We have convinced the local Baptist Hospital to accept this card but it was us who had to spend our time to make appts. and go see them in order to convince them to even try this for the first time. We had no choice other than a PPO which is worse than this coverage. I realize that all companies are trying to find ways to cut costs but it should not be the burden of the loyal retirees who have only their retirement checks to live on. We are 65 and 68 respectively and should not be expected to drive this far for medical coverage. We have excellent, competent doctors, specialists etc. in this area and there is no reason whatsoever that we should be forced to go to a city over an hour away for any kind of drs. appointment. SecureHorizons did absolutely nothing in the way of preparing the medical profession of how this program works or assure them it was equivalent to Medicare coverage. They still do not understand it. And to be quite honest, I've just spent a couple of hours trying to even get to the specific site to look at my coverage. And still haven't gotten there.

A Very Angry Subscriber,

Betty Philemon