Being Diagnosed with prostate cancer shakes your foundation, then when Healthnet plays shenanigans it gets disturbing. Brad Bartz fancies himself an advocate for a level playing field where everyone actually has to follow the law. His career starts early with teaching and advocating for blind persons to get sales jobs starting in 1986.

Back then the State of California told Bartz's students to not work too much or you will lose your benefits. This is for a student placed to work at IBM. This is when a job at IBM was considered a life long career. Now he is fierce with Solar advocacy at his company ABC Solar Inc.

All advocacy efforts by Bartz have one distinct feature, he builds complicated database websites to help others access their government. To Bartz his most important work can be seen at www.IEPdaily.com where he documents lessons learned advocating for Special Needs children against various local school districts with unheard of success.

www.SolarPanic.com is home to Bartz advocacy efforts that led him to file pro-per and lose in one week, with one judge recusing at the State of California Supreme Court in 2018. Bartz is deciding on the domain name for this effort, so for now look at Bartz.com for art and updates.

Why would Bartz want to open this dirty laundry of Prostate Cancer and denial of services by Healthnet?

As Bartz told the Department of Managed Care, "it is important that the next person does not have to deal with this."

To paraphrase Healthnet: We have made a perfectly good offer to Mr. Bartz with two Urologist that are qualified to do the Robotic Proctectomy. Dr. Kim in San Bernardino and Dr. Rosen in North Hollywood. Note, I live in Rancho Palos Verdes. Dr. Kim is 83 miles and North Hollywood might as well be Montana. The Department of Health said that that law is not on my side to argue that it is too far.

Even though both doctors are out of the 30-mile radius that the Healthnet online provider portal provides. This means that when I search Healthnet I would never find Dr. Rosen or Dr. Kim. But, in my case Healthnet says they made a perfectly good offer to the lawyer from the State of California Department of Managed Health.

So, Mr. Bartz thought about North Hollywood as his only save-my-life choice. Mr Bartz's company, ABC Solar does business in that area and now sees it as a potential new base.

Some background is very important in this case. In December 2017 Bartz's primary care physician, a member of Direct Network Group of Healthnet was/is Dr. Gorlick. Bartz was setup with Direct Network as the best choice as the PCP was close by. Dr. Laurence Gorlick turned out to be a great PCP doctor. Funny in all the right ways and really great at medicine. Yea. Doctor Roulette paid off this time.

In January 2018 the second PSA test showed continued elevation and in April 2018 the 4.4 PSA reading prompted Dr. Gorlick to refer Bartz to a urologist.

Now the horror story begins.

Bartz said, "Folks, I am 53 years old. and when I get lied to something really happens to my advocacy efforts. I document everything and I become relentless. Now, combine this with life threatening cancer and I feel violated."

Bartz called five Urologists from the Healthnet online portal. Bartz setup two appointments only to have the doctor offices call and say that they don't take Direct Network. What!? One rejection, ok. But five rejections?

Bartz thought he gained support at Healthnet and got them to change his network and actually set up the appointment with a Urologist in Redondo Beach (Yea, this was close.). This was late October 2018. More than six months and five urologist appointments later I finally got to see a specialist.

Bartz saw the doctor who immediately scheduled a prostate biopsy for two days later. Bartz learned it was cancer on November 28, 2018. The doctor then sent the biopsy to the super specialist to check if aggressive or not.

Bartz learns at the same time his older Brother is also diagnosed with Prostate Cancer. Shit.

Then Healthnet denies to pay for the urologist and pathology for the appointment that they set up. Holy crap batman, (actually when they remove the prostate it is more about something else than that bodily function.)

Bartz called The State of California Department of Insurance who were brilliant and nice. They referred Bartz to Department of Managed Health. But, before moving on, the operator was neat to explain that AB137 was enacted in July 2016 and it requires Healthnet's online portal to be accurate. Wow! Using this in my appeal letter to the Department of Managed Health worked.

Within 12 hours of Bartz filing an official appeal and complaint with the Department of Managed Care the game was on. Bartz was stunned by the quick reaction and so ready to help convict Healthnet.

Three people from Healthnet called, each with escalating titles, to somehow tell Bartz it was going to be ok. Oh, and by the way if you disagree with the results then we will go to mandatory arbitration. This made Bartz more steadfast in providing more data to the Department of Managed Health.

This was done by calling over 20 Urologists that are listed as taking Direct Network on the Healthnet Online Portal. 18 out of 20 said no they don't take Direct Network and several were not even Urologists. This was additional and new factual data that is combined with Bartz's efforts from April 2018 until end of October 2018 just to get in the door of a Urologist.

Bartz spoke to the Department of Managed Health yesterday and she informed Bartz of the two Urologist choices provided by Healthnet. Namely Dr. Rosen in North Hollywood and Dr. Kim in San Bernardino. She sent Bartz a follow-up email that said: "I will let you know after my clinical staff confirms these providers are actually appropriately qualified to provide the surgery. " She also explained the she fined Healthnet multiple times for not filing an appeal on my behalf even though the record shows that I ask many times.

Wow Bartz was quite pleased that Healthnet got fined. He was also prepared to travel to North Korea to see Dr. Rosen. (oh shoot, I meant North Hollywood. But why fix it?)

Then just moments ago, the Department of Managed Health called again and she was pissed. Dr. Rosen does not do Robotic Proctectomy Surgery and Dr. Kim does not even work there anymore. She informed Bartz that she fined them again for this false data and gave Healthnet until 2pm tomorrow to approve Bartz to see Dr. Garrett Matsunaga a renowned Urologist in Torrance, California or find another doctor that can do the same.

If your readers are members of Direct Network of Healthnet then this story is very important to them. Please highlight AB137 in a text box and explain that any Healthnet consumer has had similar problems to Bartz then please call the Department of Managed Health or visit their website. It is the website form that Bartz used to file his appeal that has led to fines against Healthnet and the potential that he can get his Prostate removed.

And, here is the kicker. Direct Network is owned directly by Healthnet and every operator at Healthnet told Bartz that they were so surprised that Doctors would not take Direct Network.

Then Healthnet called in the "Credentialist" to fix everything. This person actually set up the appointment with Urologist that confirmed the Prostate Cancer. Remember, the one that Healthnet denied after the fact. So, the "Credentialsit" did not fix anything. I just think the title is so cool.

The Credentialist.

Thanks for listening. I hope your readers will also advocate stronger for themselves and others. Together we really can fix this place.